


Le Cirque du Feu

by purplehedgehogskies



Category: The Hunger Games
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, F/M, Modern, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-19 01:13:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 70,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1449820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplehedgehogskies/pseuds/purplehedgehogskies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Circus of Fire is back in Panem City. Peeta has always loved the Circus, partly for the girl he met ages ago, who is now the star of the show. He isn't under the impression that he has a chance with her…until the strangest of circumstances bring them together, and neither of them can really help what happens next. After all, anything can happen when the Circus is in town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: These characters are all creations of Suzanne Collins, though I've changed their personas and the world they live in.

**  
Prologue**

 

The first thing anyone noticed in his bedroom was the bulletin board. It was adorned with flyers and ticket stubs every color of the rainbow, various newspaper clippings and magazine articles and even grainy pictures he printed off the internet or took himself. His brothers’ countless friends and girlfriends would stride by his open doorway and do a double take, and a lot of the time they asked him about it. The questions they asked were usually along the same lines, mainly regarding the why.

     He loved the circus, that was why. It wasn’t just any circus that he dedicated the board to, but _Le Cirque du Feu,_ which he could never pronounce correctly despite his endless efforts. It was so much easier just to say the _Circus of Fire._ Or just the Circus, because to Peeta, it was the only circus that really mattered at all.

     There was no way he could possibly forget his first time at the Circus of Fire. He was six years old and it was a humid summer afternoon. His mother dragged him roughly along past cheesy games and a fortune-teller’s booth as Walden and Cap ran ahead. His father bought him cotton candy, which led to an argument between his parents about how unfortunate his sticky fingers were. He didn’t remember the details, only that he allegedly ruined his mother’s dress and that he cried while his brother helped him wash his hands. That wasn’t really the important part.

      The important part that he remembered almost flawlessly, well, that came after. As their parents continued to fight, the three of them wandered the circus alone, the oldest of them nine and the youngest still a bed wetter. Peeta was still crying and clinging to Cap’s hand when they passed the animal tent that wasn’t open to the public.

      There was a girl with braids sitting in the opening, humming along to the music that played on the loudspeakers and projected itself over the entire space that the circus took up. When she saw them she got up, running over and kicking up the dust of the fairground paths.

     “Hey,” she said, and blocked their path. “Your big brothers didn’t make you cry, did they?”

     “What?” Walden looked confused. The girl just ignored him and looked at Peeta, since she was obviously only talking to him.

     “I know how to beat them up,” she had said, eyeing his brothers. “If I have to.”

     Peeta shook his head and looked at her, awed.  She was his age but smaller than him, but the way she planted her hands on her hips, he could tell that she meant business. He briefly explained what had happened and wiped away his tears, letting go of Cap’s hand as they started to walk along the paths again. Instead he walked with her until they found their parents again, and then he left with them, waving goodbye. At six, he didn’t really get why he wanted so badly to see her again…later on, he would, but that day she was just the Circus girl with the braids. He didn’t even know her name.

    ****

 

He was eight before he saw her again. It was winter, actually, and the Circus was taking up an old theater on the edge of town that was practically on the verge of falling over. But the Circus made it come alive.

     He had been there the night before and hadn’t seen her—instead, he saw the acrobats swinging overhead in the lobby, and the horse show outside in the parking lot. The cold seeped into his bones and made his brothers complain, but Peeta just burrowed himself into his hand-me-down coat and watched, completely in awe.

     It was the morning after in the light and the warmth of the bakery when he met Katniss Everdeen.

     They came in with a burst of snow and cold—a girl and a woman, the same woman he’d seen in the horse show the evening before. She was blonde and slender and proud, and as she ordered, he found that her voice was smooth like the silk of his mother’s scarves that he wasn’t allowed to touch. But it was the girl who caught Peeta’s eye. She was taller now, and her hair was shorter, but it was the same girl. He stopped cleaning tables and watched her as she surveyed the contents of the bakery case curiously.

     Her mother bought her a cheese bun, and then she ambled towards him.

     “I do remember you, Peeta,” she had said very matter-of-factly as she bit into the cheese bun. Her use of his name took him by surprise, and he nearly dropped his towel. “I saw you last night too, at my mom’s show.”

     He was speechless, which made her laugh. She told him that the Circus was only going to be in town for a week, and that they were there to order cupcakes for her father’s birthday in a couple of days. He didn’t say a word for fear of shattering the moment, or for fear that she’d disappear. Eventually, of course, she did have to leave.

     “I’m Katniss,” she said, “Katniss Everdeen.”

     And then she was gone, and in a week, so was the Circus of Fire.

 ****

It was called the Circus of Fire for a reason: at night, they burned torches of brilliant colors, and many of the acts incorporated fire in some way, whether it be passing off torches or diving through flaming hoops. As it developed, the acts grew more and more intense, dragging audiences closer to the edges of their seats. By the time Peeta was twelve, he was constantly re-watching badly filmed YouTube videos of old performances. He kept tabs on the website and read articles and reviews, commenting angrily when somebody was too critical. It wasn’t all he did in his free time—he also painted a lot, but that was easily overlooked. To the town, he was the crazy baker’s boy in love with the Circus of Fire.

     They didn’t understand. They would never understand. The Circus of Fire seemed to ignite everything in him that was good and well and happy—without it, he didn’t know what he would do. So he watched, and he waited, and he hoped that Katniss Everdeen would remember him the next time she came back to this Virginia town.

     He hadn’t seen it coming when he opened the webpage one morning to learn that the Circus of Fire had lost a major performer: David Everdeen, a star in acrobatics and the horse show. He recognized the name immediately, and then the photo posted with the article, a photo of the deceased and his eldest daughter, Katniss. He printed it out, hung it up on his corkboard, and just stared at it until he couldn’t bear the hollowness it caused inside him.

     For a year, the Circus all but disappeared. Posting was infrequent, and no one was talking about it anymore, but Peeta still kept his collection of flyers and articles. He still held onto the hope that _Le Cirque du Feu_  would be back.

     Sure enough, it was back on the map by the next July, burning its way across the country and leaving them all in awe.

     There was a new star of the Circus, and they called her the Mockingjay.

****

 

When the circus came to town again, Peeta was seventeen. He was the first to know, the first to buy a ticket, and the first in line when it opened. Now that it was practically the most popular circus in the country, many of the townspeople weren’t far behind.

     The tents were all set up on the old fair grounds, but now they were far more advanced than they’d been when he’d seen them. The stripes were brilliant red and orange, and along the bottom, there were rings of yellow flame. Lanterns hung along the paths and he could smell popcorn and cotton candy, even from where he stood outside the gate. The excitement thrumming through him was equivalent to all the joy he’d ever felt combined, and he could barely keep still. The children in the crowd were just as anxious, because they had heard about the Circus of Fire on TV or on the internet, and they had begged their parents to take them to see the Mockingjay.

    Peeta had waited years for this, and they waited mere weeks or months. He couldn’t hold their excitement against them though: who wouldn’t be excited? It was, after all, the one and only Circus of Fire.

     When the gate finally opened and the crowd surged forward, Peeta fought his way to the very front. Somewhere in that cluster of tents, Katniss Everdeen was preparing to perform. He would get to see her act in person, watch from the sidelines as she showed the town how absolutely radiant she was.

      She was the Mockingjay, the Girl on Fire, her name spoken with high esteem in every corner of the country.

      To Peeta, though, she was Katniss. She was the girl who threatened to beat up his brothers when he was six, and who came into the bakery when he was eight. He had met her twice and knew very little about her, but he knew more than they did. She had been his Circus girl long before she was their Mockingjay.


	2. Cotton Candy

**Chapter One: Cotton Candy**

 

Vendors lined the fairground paths as Peeta made his way towards the main tent, shouting over the din about their top-notch caramel corn and funnel cakes. He almost paused to watch a woman with curling gray hair spin wisps of red and orange cotton candy around striped cardboard sticks, but he was in a hurry to get to the tent before they closed it off for the beginning of the first performance. So he sped up his pace and maneuvered around countless children, even greeting some of them by name but refusing to stop engage in small talk with their parents.

      When he finally stumbled through the entrance of the blazing tent, he was greeted with a cacophony of excited voices and a sea of people filing into the seats along the edges of the arena-shaped space. The lights were bright overhead, illuminating the acrobatic contraptions and the striped walls of the tent, but there was not a single performer in sight. As he made his way to a seat in a middle row, Peeta tucked his ticket stub in his pocket and apologized to the people he bumped into and stepped on.

     The tent continued to fill until an alarm went off, a high-pitched ringing that reminded Peeta of old-fashioned fire alarms. It rung in his ears even after it stopped and the ushers closed the tent flaps that he’d come in through. The lights around him dimmed and a speaker somewhere crackled.

     A spotlight began to roam, shedding light upon the expectant faces of random audience members before finally landing on a young man in a waistcoat and top hat, sitting on the steps in an aisle, looking bored. His sleeves were red, shifting into blue at the wrists. When he hauled himself to his feet, he shook out his arms and looked over the crowd.

     And then he was gone.

     The spotlight swung again as puffs of smoke went off around the interior of the arena, and then the magician strode calmly in through the stage entrance. He plucked a rose from behind his ear and tossed it to a female audience member in the front row, smirking proudly as he made his way to the middle of the tent.

     “Ladies and gentleman, I think you ought to know something about circuses,” he began, speaking into the microphone clipped to his collar, like the ones they used on TV interviews. “Circuses are just performances. They’re cheap shows that profit way more than they should, for all the thrills they give.” He huffed. “Circuses are crap, if you’ll pardon my French.”

     The audience appeared to be slightly confused.

     “But _Le Cirque du Feu_  is not an ordinary circus,” he continued. Slowly, fog started to creep up around the spectators’ seats, curling around them and causing them to gasp in surprise. “The Circus of Fire is the real deal. You’ve never seen anything like it. Trust me, I know. I know everything.”

      The magician removed his hat, which subtracted some of his impressive height, but not much. He turned it over in his hands, eyeing the crowd, looking decidedly prideful. A steady drumbeat filtered through the speakers, and the screeching of tires and a car horn, and other various sound effects. Fast paced music with pulsing beats began, and the fog drifted closer and closer to the magician.

     He casually tossed his hat up, and it caught fire, burning brightly for just a second before everything went dark again. When the smoke cleared and the lights shone again, the magician had vanished once more.  

     Following that brief introduction, the acrobats made their entrance, wearing matching costumes colored like charcoal and flames. Their hair hung in curls down their backs—one auburn, one dark, one blonde and bright orange—and they were barefoot as they waved at the audience. Swing-like contraptions were slowly lowered, and each girl stepped on one before they started ascending again. The swings then began to move in swirling patterns around each other, faster and faster as they got higher…and then abruptly stopped. From there, the act began, a series of impressive feats of balance, daring flips, and other moves that caused the audience to coo in delight. Peeta knew about the hidden harnesses beneath their costumes and the hardly visible support cables they connected too, but it didn’t make it any less magic to see them spinning and twirling so high up in the air without a net to catch them if they fell.

     It was stunning.

     Next, one of the acrobat girls stayed in the ring and juggled knives and hatchets. After that, the magician was back, introducing himself as Finnick the Spectacular and lighting rings of fire along the arena floor by just snapping his fingers. He doubled as a stand-up comedian and slightly cryptic fortune teller when he brought volunteers forward, making jokes and whipping out tarot cards that had a nasty habit of setting themselves aflame. He wore flame retardant gloves and a super cocky grin, and Peeta could tell that he was the kind of person who got more than enough attention and was completely aware of how “Spectacular” he actually was. Not that that made Peeta dislike him or the act—it was just an observation.

     When he vanished again, which he seemed to have a habit of doing, it was time for the horses to trot into the ring, a pair of girls sitting on their backs. They were wearing different costumes, little red dresses with yellow and orange tulle skirts. As the horses circled the ring, the girls stood and showed of their balance skills, and they didn’t waver when trotting turned into galloping. They were small girls balanced on the backs of huge animals, and they were smiling and gracefully moving, and when they switched horses so casually…Peeta caught himself holding his breath.

     When they rode out with their hands linked, Peeta straightened in his chair and held his eyes wide open. He knew what was next.

     The birds flew in one by one until each of them had perched on one of the posts inside the arena. They whistled a set of four tones as the lights in the tent dimmed again, a single spotlight focusing on the two figures that walked slowly into view. There she was, dressed in a slim-cut red dress with a bow slung over her back. Her companion wore black and gray and his hands were smudged and bandaged, and there was something in the way he walked beside her that made Peeta bristle a little bit.

     They stood back to back, pulling out their bows and plucking sleek metallic arrows from their quivers. There seemed to be a switch of sorts on them that set the tips on fire, and very quickly the two of them let their arrows fly upwards towards the red and black balloons that were all drifting around near the top of the tent. As the heat flew by them, they all began to loudly burst and the crowd watched as the arrows struck the targets that the balloons had obscured.

     Katniss and her companion took a bow, but Peeta knew that that was only the beginning.

     They shot lighted arrows at the twelve posts and the birds flew up and around, whistling when each arrow hit home. The posts, which were actually more like torches, burned brightly, casting warmth and awe onto the faces of the audience. Katniss and the man with her then turned and nodded to each other before he took the bows and arrows and ran offset.

     It was just her now, standing there in the center of the ring. She whistled, like the birds, and they could be heard whistling in return. She lifted the hem of her dress and began to walk, her bare feet dragging through the sand and the back of the skirt leaving a trail behind her. She continued to whistle, and it was all so calm that nobody expected it when she began to spin. She spun and spun, which seemed to ignite the skirt of her dress and create flickering flames that turned with her. She danced, and they spread, blackening the ends of her dress and not fazing her at all.

     Now Peeta was definitely holding his breath, watching her twirl and flames engulf her. She didn’t even flinch as the audience feared for her life, she just twirled faster, and there was more spring in her step. Katniss apparently got thrills from being on fire, something Peeta was never able to see in the videos online. She had a grin on her face, a reckless abandon with which she danced, and everything within her seemed to glow as brightly as the flames did around her. If he could, Peeta would freeze that moment and live in it forever. Forever to gaze upon her, the girl he’d loved before he even understood it, the girl who looked more beautiful in robes of flames than anyone ever could.

     Her dress turned dark and the flames snuffed out, and she stood there clad in the costume that gave her the name Mockingjay. It was black with blue, made to look like the feathers of a bird, and when she lifted her arms there were wings to go along with it. What followed was the roaring of the crowed, the standing ovation, the pleas for encore. Peeta was surrounded by people lurching to their feet and contributing to thundering applause, and he had no choice but to stand with them or lose his view of her.

     But he didn’t whistle and cheer like the others, he just clapped slowly and appreciatively as Katniss curtsied and turned towards the exit. He whispered her name, only to have it lost in the sea of noise, which was just as well. After all, to her, he was just another face in the crowd. It didn’t matter that she’d set his heart on fire and now he could feel it burning in his chest, and it didn’t matter that he had met her before she was the Mockingjay.

     He was just a Circus aficionado and a baker’s boy with paint in his hair, and she was a radiant dream of a girl that left him breathless. Nothing would happen between them. Nothing ever could.

 ****

The fire made her feel alive.

     It was simple: the moments Katniss spent performing with the flames lapping up around her were the happiest she’d had since her father died. People thought she was crazy for loving it so much, but it was when she felt closest to him. The Circus was his home and the stage was his life, and the thrill that came with her performance was partly because it was in her blood. Sometimes when she started to spin, the crowd would seemingly fade away and he would be there, watching proudly from the stands. He’d take her hand and twirl her around like he did when she was a little girl, and she would just lose herself in the daydream…until of course, the flames went out again.

     Then she would accept the applause and head backstage, where people were running about in preparation for the grand finale. They’d all just ride by in horse-driven chariots decorated with the Circus’s logo as Beetee set off his pyrotechnics from the control booth. Then it would be over and the crowd would clear out onto the fairgrounds to play games and eat and just do other circus things.

     Once that was over with, she turned to Gale.

     “I would suggest you leave me alone for the rest of the day,” she said.

     “Aye, captain,” he replied snarkily, and he turned and headed towards the grungy trailer he had set up on the edge of the property. The reason she’d cast him off was because they’d had a dispute before the performance about what he wanted to do when he was done with the Circus, and she’d been very upset about what he’d been insinuating. The Circus was not meant to be a temporary gig. It was everything she had ever known, and everything Gale had ever known, and she did not appreciate that he would just leave it behind.

     Katniss sighed and got down from the chariot, heading into the dressing room portion of the tent. She slipped into the little alcove she had set up, making sure the curtain was shut as she changed out of the Mockingjay costume and into something more comfortable. Cinna would be by later to pick it up and reset it, so she just left it hanging there and put on an old t-shirt of her dad’s and her favorite pair of jeans. She undid her elaborate updo and then spun her hair into a messy braid down her back. Then she grabbed an old baseball cap from Wisconsin with a cow and a cheese wedge embroidered on it and set out into the Circus.

     Early afternoon sunlight poked through the wispy clouds above, and Katniss pulled the visor of her baseball cap further down. It cast a shadow over her still made-up face, shielding winged eyeliner and glitter from prying eyes. As a plus, it kept the sun out of her face and was a lot more pleasant than walking bareheaded.

     The fairground paths were fairly bustling, and if Katniss had to guess, she’d say that half the town was there and milling about. Typically, when people heard that the Circus was in town, they’d flock to the gates to gawk at the flame-colored tents and wait in line to buy tickets for the whole experience. After they had swarmed in and seen the show and been satisfied, they would often stick around to watch side acts and play the unwinnable games. A lot of the time, if there was another main performance scheduled for later in the day, they would just stay to see it again. Because of this, Katniss was used to the crowded paths and navigated them with ease.

     The animal tent was open to the circusgoers today, the flaps drawn back. The faint smell of dung and sweat and horses in general drifted through the opening, but it was another thing Katniss was used to. After the performance, all the animals they used went here to join other animals that they had for no particular reason, like Lady the goat. But Katniss wasn’t there to see the horses in their saddles made to look like burning embers, and she wasn’t there to see the mockingjays that she was only a little fond of. She most definitely was not there to see the orangeish cat with the pushed-in face that hissed when she entered. No, her routine visitation to the animal tent was solely to see Prim. Prim, her sister, who was still in costume and feeding Lady out of the palm of her hand.

     “Hello, random baseball-capped pedestrian,” said Prim as she stood up and exited the goat pen. Lady bleated and tried to follow her, but she ended up butting her head against the gate as it closed. Prim reached back into the pen and patted her spotted head.

     “Greetings, strangely-dressed circus performer,” said Katniss by way of reply. She nudged up her visor and smiled at her sister, who stuck out like a sore thumb in her red tulle: a fashion decision that no one had really supported except Effie, and she claimed it made Prim and Rue look “just _darling_ ”. Even Cinna sort of regretted the design and she’d seen him sketching out something new to put them in.

     Prim sighed and looked at the clock. She had to be leading her horse out soon, because there was a different version of her act meant to take place just outside the tent.

     “You did good today, ducky,” Katniss said, and Prim grimaced.

     “Don’t you think I’ve outgrown that nickname yet?”

    “Never,” Katniss answered. “You will never outgrow it, because you will never stop being my baby sister. Plus, it was Dad who gave it to you…”

     Prim didn’t roll her eyes—instead she softly smiled at the memory. When she was little, she wore a shirt that was too big and the back of it stuck out like a tail, making her look ever-so-slightly like a duck. Their father had called her that once, it stuck, and she’d run around the house quacking maniacally like water fowl on a murder spree. It was a memory that both girls were very fond of, and Prim even regretted thinking that she could ever tire of the nickname.

     When it was time for Prim to go, they quickly hugged and she hurried off to the stall where her bay stallion was chewing on something he probably wasn’t supposed to be chewing on. Katniss stood among the circusgoers for just a moment and watched her sister walk away, and then she spun on her heal and made her way out of the stinky animal tent.

     She meandered around the circus until she reached Mags’s cotton candy stand, where Finnick was sitting in his plainclothes, a t-shirt and a pair of swim trunks. He was wrapping the bundles of cotton candy and talking with Mags about something or other when Katniss approached from behind and smacked the back of his head.

     “And then I think—OW!” he shrieked, and then turned around to glare at her. “What did I ever do to you?”

     “You magicked my chocolate stash away. Don’t you dare say you didn’t, because Annie told me,” said Katniss. “Give back what you can and I’ll allow you to keep your pretty face.”

     “Ha, you admit it then! My face is _gorgeous._ ”

     “Keep dreaming,” she replied, and turned to Mags. “How’s business today?”

     “Spectacular. This fiery cotton candy is not a common thing...so everyone wants some!” Mags said excitedly. “Just now a family bought six large bags from me, three of each color.”

     Katniss smiled, extremely happy. The red and orange spun sugar was a relatively new prospect for Mags, and no one had been too sure that circusgoers would take to it, regardless of how seamlessly it fit into the theme of the Circus. However, it had been a hit in the last location they’d visited, and now it seemed to be selling like hotcakes. A little girl ran over and bought a smaller portion as she stood there, and Katniss was astonished to see how much money Mags had packed into the cash register already.

     With her hat still pulled down over her eyes, she joined Finnick in the back of the booth and started tying the packages of cotton candy to the posts that held up the awning, as well as the hooks along the sides of the booth. Despite the fact that she wasn’t even handling the stuff itself, Katniss’s fingers were sticky and stained within minutes and Finnick was laughing at her when she tried to wipe them off on her jeans.

     “Shut up,” she said, but good naturedly. Finnick grinned and tossed a package of baby wipes in her direction, and she opened it to find that there was only one left. She used it and went back to work, but before long, the stickiness was back and she no longer had any way to remedy it. She sighed and continued to help, and her hands just got stickier.

    “Go wash them. I’ll hold down the fort,” said Finnick. She wondered how he managed to keep his hands clean, since he was the one actually putting the candy on the cones and into the packaging. She wondered all the time how Finnick managed to do the things he did, and every time the only thing she could think of was magic. He was an illusionist, but sometimes Katniss considered that his illusions weren’t tricks at all, but honest-to-God magic.

     She opened the little gate and stepped out of the booth, holding her hands awkwardly so that her fingers wouldn’t stick together. Then she said goodbye to Mags and allowed herself to be kissed on the cheek before she headed towards one of the only buildings that was built onto the old Panem City fairgrounds—the washroom. From her experience, they weren’t the nicest washrooms ever, and when she approached she realized that they’d gotten even worse. She couldn’t even read the signs.

     She had to guess which one was the ladies’ room, and then she had to poke her head inside to make sure. No urinals, so it only made sense that she’d chosen the right one.

     She walked over to the sink and started washing away the cotton candy residue when she heard the door creak open. Someone walked in, stumbled, and then cursed in a distinctly masculine voice.

     She looked up to see a teenage boy reflected in the mirror, his eyes wide and scared. Then he closed them tightly, and she turned around to face him, taking in his appearance. He had a nice face, messy blond hair, a big build and a pair of beat up high tops on his feet. And of course, he was frozen in a state of shock and speechlessness, turning to try and make his way out of the bathroom with his eyes still closed.

     “Oh my God I am so sorry I read the signs wrong I’m leaving,” he rushed to say, and then he bumped into the wall.

     “Hey, relax,” she said. “It’s just me in here, and I was just washing my hands, honestly. Open your eyes before you hurt yourself.”

     He looked over his shoulder at her, did a double take, and then turned around completely.

      “That’s better,” she smiled. He had nice eyes, a bright blue almost like Prim’s, but different. She wasn’t going to tell him that of course, and she wasn’t going to tell him how familiar he looked either, because it kind of seemed like she had met him before though she couldn’t put her finger on the where or the when. “And it’s an honest mistake to make—I could’ve done the same with the state those signs are in.”

      He nodded and swallowed hard, and Katniss realized belatedly that he was looking at her strangely. She had never been good at reading people, but she could still determine when someone recognized her.

      She sighed.

      “My autograph isn’t worth anything, so don’t bother asking,” she said coldly, turning back to the sink and removing her hat. She splashed her face with water and grabbed a few paper towels to rub the makeup away. He didn’t leave. She didn’t care.

     “I wasn’t going to,” he said, once he’d composed himself. “I…I…I’m just sorry for um, walking in on you. I have to um, wash my hands in the men’s then.”

     “It doesn’t matter where you wash your hands.”

     “I can wash them here?” he asked. She looked up and met his eyes in the mirror. They were wide and youthful and so much bluer than regular blue eyes. “No, I shouldn’t. I’m going to go.”

     “Don’t,” she said, surprising herself. “Just wash your hands and go, it doesn’t matter to me and I’m the only one here. And stop looking at me like I belong in a circus.”

     He laughed.

     “If anyone belongs here, you do,” he replied. “I’ve never seen anyone happier with what they do than you are when you’re performing. It’s incredible, Katniss.”

    “I hear that a lot,” she muttered.

     He shrugged and moved up to the sink beside her. With a glance at his hands, she realized that his fingers were sticky with cotton candy and she couldn’t help but smile at the coincidence.

     “You like cotton candy?”

     “Love it. It’s my drug,” he said, soaping up his hands. “It’s ruined my relationship with my mother and driven me to selling pastries to earn my living.”

     “Wait. You work at the Panem City Bakery, don’t you?” asked Katniss, and the boy looked up. He really couldn’t be much more than a boy, with the brightness in his eyes and the slight babyness to his face. He nodded slowly, and she grinned. “Do you know how amazing their cheese buns are?”

     “I make them even better,” he replied. “But my mother refuses to change the recipe.”

     Katniss finished wiping off her makeup and adjusted her hat on her head. Then she turned to him, looking him over one more time. Between the cotton candy addiction and the fact that he worked in the bakery, Katniss was beginning to form some sort of connection in her head. She recalled very little of it, only that he’d been crying and she’d made some sort of threat towards his brothers.

     Peeta, his name was, like the bread but with a double e instead of an i. She remembered that it was embroidered on his apron when she saw him at the bakery so many years ago, and that he’d seemed really surprised that she knew his name.

       “So, how recognizable am I now?” she asked him, peering out from under the visor of the hat. Peeta smiled.

     “Who are you again?”

      “Very funny. I’d like to avoid being recognized again, so…” she waited for him to give her a serious answer.

     “I would recognize you anywhere, Everdeen,” he said. “But anyone else wouldn’t spare you a second glance.”

     “Oh.” _What was that supposed to mean?_ Katniss stood there for a second and he reached around her for a paper towel. His arm brushed hers for an instant before he pulled back to dry his hands off. “Well, I have to go. Don’t walk into the wrong bathroom again, okay?”

     “I can’t make any promises,” he replied.

      And she turned to leave, but she stopped in the doorway, watching him mess with his hair in the mirror. He probably thought she was gone already. The boy with the cotton-candy hands had grown up nicely, she thought. A smartass with pretty blue eyes and one of the most dashing and genuine smiles she’d seen up close.

     “See you around, Peeta,” she added, just to see his look of shock reflected in the mirror as she walked away.  


	3. What is Not in Plain Sight

**Chapter Two: What is Not in Plain Sight**

 

Peeta’s head was starting to hurt.

     The fact that Katniss had remembered him was both thrilling and terribly embarrassing, seeing as, of all places, they had run into each other in the ladies’ room. At first he thought he’d imagined it, but Peeta was not particularly prone to having hallucinations, whether they involve pretty girls or not. He found himself rather skilled at separating reality from fantasy, and if that skill went rusty he wasn’t sure if he’d make it through even a day without losing it completely.

     As soon as she was gone, he had proceeded to lightly hit his head against the paper towel dispenser, feeling so embarrassed and ridiculous that he wanted to wash himself down the drain or disappear like Finnick the Spectacular could. Within the next minute or two, he just stood there, overthinking everything and letting his hands air dry before he actually headed out. And of course, his luck was so brilliant that he ran into his eighth grade science teacher, Mrs. Wiress, on the way out.

     She didn’t ask him why he’d been in the ladies’ room, and for that he was very, very glad. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it. On his way towards the fairground gates, Peeta stumbled and tripped, scraping away a layer of skin on his knee and getting gravel in it. Then, when boarding the bus, he thought he’d lost his bus pass and had to pay the fare. When it let him off at his stop, not only did he discover that the pass was in his wallet, but he also rammed his head against one of the holding-on poles when he got up.  After he cleaned his knee and stripped off his shoes and socks, he flopped down onto his mattress, and of course, he hit his head on the wall. Of course.

     Now he was sitting at his computer in the dark, hunched over and squinting because he didn’t know where his glasses were. It really was no wonder that he had a headache.

      First, Peeta emailed the parks department to notify them of the sign illegibility of the fairground restrooms. Then, he texted his brother asking for painkillers, such as Advil and/or morphine, if possible. Lastly, he Facebook messaged his friend Delly with a very vague complaint about how his day at the Circus had ended in a mortifying and painful turn of events.

      Moments later, she replied. **Wait, what happened?**

 **I accidentally walked into the girls bathroom. Just my luck…** he pressed send. He watched the screen as Delly got the message, and it told her that she was typing.

     **Omg that sounds bad. Was anyone in there?**

**Katniss was. HUMILIATING. She remembered me, too…I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.**

Delly waited a while before replying, and Peeta rummaged around in his desk drawer while he was left hanging. He found a multitude of important things—paintbrushes, hand sanitizer and his square-framed glasses that were an unfortunate shade of bright orange. That color choice was among the things he most regretted, right alongside walking into the ladies’ room by mistake to find Katniss Everdeen washing her hands.

     **…I don’t know what to say, Peeta…I’m sorry.**

 **Its ok, its not like I had a chance with her anyway.** He added, and then he put his glasses on and leaned back in his chair. He heard the notification tone when Delly replied, but he didn’t look to see what she said. Instead, he logged off and headed downstairs for a cup of whatever he could find, which will probably be tea. His was a tea-drinking household all the way, except for Walden, who fucking hated tea.

     He rummaged through the stash of tea and found something to his liking, put some water in a saucepan on the stove, and stood there barefoot in the kitchen, all alone. He looked out on the living room, which is mostly barren, since his mother took the furniture when his parents separated last month. When she left, Peeta was more concerned about what she would take in the divorce than the fact that his parents were getting a divorce. His relationship with his mother was rocky, and the split had been a long time coming. As long as his dad kept the house, the bakery, and the boys, Peeta would be content with the arrangement.

     He loved his mother, he did, but she was a hard woman to get along with. Covered in spikes and nails, practically, and a conversation with her was like walking out into a minefield…you never knew when you’d be met with explosions.

     He just didn’t understand why his father hadn’t bought a new couch yet.

     When Peeta’s water had boiled, he poured it into a mug and plopped in his tea of choice—it was cranberry something or other this time. He didn’t put anything in it, just let it steep and carried it up to his room.

      Being home alone when everyone else was working had definite drawbacks, including the fact that nobody comes running when you spill hot tea on your feet. Peeta yelped and dropped the cup itself, glad that the hallway was carpeted and the impact was lessened. There was a chip in the handle, but that was it—however, Peeta’s feet were not as lucky. He soaked them in cold water in the bathtub before cleaning up the spill and returning to his bedroom, where he just curled up with the window open and read a book until he fell asleep in the middle of the afternoon. 

      It only made sense that he dreamt about Katniss and her twirling flames.

 **** 

There was a performance scheduled for six-thirty, so they went out for dinner at five something. Finnick drove, with Annie riding shotgun. Prim and Rue were giggling in the middle seats, and in the back, Katniss was reading a book. Johanna prodded at her and poked fun at the subject matter—it was the guilty pleasure sort of book, a steamy romance about a princess and an outlaw. She ended up just bookmarking her page and beating the acrobat with it, which caused the minivan to be filled with Johanna’s colorful cursing, Katniss’s punctuated strikes, and everyone else’s laughter.

      At the diner, since many of them were still wearing some variation of their costuming, whether it be the makeup or a full blown leotard, they got a few strange looks. But of course, the Circus was in town, why should they think anything of a few strangely attired teenagers walking about? The term “circus freak” came to mind, but really the only one of them whose normality was questionable was Finnick. Normal people don’t disappear all the time, and they certainly can’t set things on fire with a snap of their fingers.

      Katniss sat between Prim and Rue on one side of the table, and Finnick wedged himself between Johanna and Annie and, because he was ridiculous, he casually wrapped an arm around both of them. Annie, who was actually his girlfriend, didn’t mind…but Johanna decided that the best reaction would be to bite his hand. He yelped and drew back, cradling his hand in front of him as a waitress strode up to the table. She had a lot of fiery curls and seemed cheerful as she asked them what drinks they wanted.

     “A round of root beers,” said Finnick. Anyone who didn’t know him well would think the movement of his eyes a little rude, what with where they landed, but Katniss knew better. He was reading her nametag. “Make hers diet,” he gestured to Johanna. The waitress nodded. “Thank you, Myra.”

      “Thank _you,_ Finnick the Spectacular,” she replied, and then she walked away.

      They all flipped through the menu and made small talk about the earlier show and the upcoming show and where they’d messed up and whether or not anyone knew the difference. Katniss ordered a regular burger, Prim and Rue had matching orders of Caesar salad, and Johanna as always, had a veggie burger. Finn and Annie were sharing a big plate of pasta that was especially made for two, meant to reflect a Disney movie or something, or so she thought.

     Halfway through the meal, Finn pulled out his deck of cards. It was a tradition in the Circus, that whenever more than two of the performers gathered together, and he was there, he did a reading for some reason. Last night, after spending hours setting up, the entire cast of performers and some of the behind-the-scenes people had eaten pot roast around their circular dining table. That time, he read for all of them, discovering good things about the next day’s performances and one confusing thing regarding a battle of sorts. They all brushed that off.

     Now, he asked, “What’s the deal today?”

     “Read for Katniss!” said Prim excitedly, before anyone could say anything else. Katniss elbowed her under the table, but she was unrelenting. “It’s been so long since you’ve done a reading for her.”

      “There’s a reason for that, you know,” Katniss said.

      “A bunch of stuff about not believing in knowing the future and that there’s no predestined events?” Prim raised her eyebrows and picked up a crouton from her plate. She wagged it at Katniss as an admonishing mother would. “Well, I call bullshit on that today.”

     “Prim!” she scolded. Cuss words never bothered her much, unless they came from the mouth of Prim or Rue.

     “Actually, Katniss,” said Finnick, shuffling his cards. “I think you’re long overdue.”

      “If anyone’s long overdue, it’s Gale,” she snapped. Finn’s tarot cards, with their bright illustrations and pyromania, gave Gale the creeps. They all knew he’d blow a gasket if he found out that Finnick had ever done a reading for him, which he had, on multiple occasions. Just without his direct consent.

     This actually succeeded in diverting attention from Katniss, if only for a few minutes. Finn sorted his cards into piles and drew a few, randomly. He smugly held up three, the Knight of Wands that Gale always got, the Seven of Cups, and something else that Katniss couldn’t read before they all burst into flames.

      “Basically, he’s still this courageous warrior, thinks he’s the shit…blah, blah, blah. However this time it appears that he has a bit of a choice to make, between what he has and what he can get,” Finnick said, flicking ash off his fingers. Katniss had often entertained the idea that the gloves he wore when he performed were more of a trick than the actual magic he did. Males were mysterious creatures, but the Finnick the “illusionist” was the most mysterious she’d met. “Not much different from any of his other readings, honestly.”

     Katniss nodded. She had expected Gale’s reading to be just as its predecessors were: a reflection of his courage and the fire in him and whatnot. The choice, however, threw her off. Was this, perhaps, the choice between staying in the Circus or leaving it? It upset her all over again, enough that almost didn’t notice when Finnick started shuffling his cards again in the complicated bridge formation that she could never get down. He also had another very smug expression, with his grin all crooked and his eyebrows poised gracefully above where they usually were. 

     “Finnick…”

      He spread out a few cards and wiggled the aforementioned eyebrows at her.

      “Pick them or I will pick for you,” he said, smirking. “You’re not getting out of this, girl on fire.”

      Katniss knew he wasn’t going to give up, so she plucked a few from the spread-out pile and thrust them face down in his direction for reading, though she didn’t really care what they said. The way his expression changed from cocky to intrigued in a split-second when he looked at her cards changed her mind. He spread looked at each one and furrowed his brow, taking his time with the interpretation. Katniss fidgeted in her seat.

     “Interesting,” was all he said, and he let the cards burn slowly on the table in front of them.  

      “What the actual fuck to you mean, _interesting_?” asked Katniss, throwing an onion ring at him. Finnick poked the ashes of the cards around and kept his head down, but she could see the grin forming on his face. Arrogant son of a bitch, he was, but he was like family and therefore she loved him. Even when he was annoying. “ _Finnick_!”

     “Calm down. It’s just not something I usually see in your cards...” he said.

     “What is it? What’s in my cards?”

    “Katniss…it’s love. There’s love in your cards. I mean, you usually have things like nurturing, or fighting spirit, or something…but this time there’s indications of impending romance,” Finnick explained. At her blank expression, he shrugged and regrouped his cards before putting them away. “Don’t blame me for anything. I don’t pick the cards, I only read them. I could be wrong, for all I know…the cards don’t even really speak English, so it’s hard to tell what anything _really_ means.”

     “That’s comforting,” she muttered, chewing on the big lettuce garnish that they’d put in her burger basket. The rest of the mealtime went on with the same amount of chattering and enthusiasm as it had been before, but Katniss was not much of a participator. She couldn’t stop thinking about Gale saying that he was almost ready to leave the Circus, as if there was some kind of life outside of it. She couldn’t wrap her mind around that, that there were other places to be and other things to do and other types of life to lead. The Circus was Katniss’s life, her home, and her family. Adding to the frustration was the reading that Finnick had given her. While being vague, as his readings always were, this one had struck a chord inside her. What could it possibly mean?

      Katniss had never been in love. She’d never had a boyfriend, since she’d never had the time or permanence for it. Her life was always picking up and moving to another place, and she hadn’t lived in an actual house since the year her father died, when the Everdeens took some time away from the Circus. Houses were strange to her, and so were concepts like college and vacations and falling in love. She read about countless romances, but she’d never pictured herself like one of the fair and fragile damsels or manic pixie girls that literary guys fell in love with. She never thought of herself as the kind of girl any guy would fall in love with.

      She did light herself on fire for a living, after all.

     When it was time to go back to the fairgrounds and prepare for the evening’s performance, Katniss dragged her feet a little and got reprimanded twice by Johanna, who said she was being sullen again, and that she needed to move at least at the speed of a hungry tortoise. (The tortoise remark was partly inspired by the fact that Katniss was still nibbling on the lettuce garnish).

     In the car, she didn’t touch her book, favoring the view of the town flying by her window. To the people living there, the storefronts and picket fences were aspects of their lives, permanent to them but not really in the grand scheme of things, since there’d be a time someday when it was all gone. The Circus wasn’t permanent, since it traveled all over, as circuses do. They would arrive, set up, dazzle the crowds, and in a week or two they’d be disassembling tents and packing up trailers again. However, to Katniss, it was everyday life, consistent and reliable. She was born into the family of _Le Cirque du Feu_  and raised to believe that imagination and love were boundless. She knew how to tie her shoes and how to solve for x, but she didn’t know how to live without the Circus.

    **** 

“Peeta.”

     Peeta groaned and pressed his face into his pillow. In waking him, Delly was very persistent, as he’d been poked and prodded for several minutes already. He stubbornly refused to acknowledge that he was awake and alert by squeezing his eyes shut and hoping she’d go away. She didn’t. Instead she jumped on his bed and kicked him in various places, places that made him fear what she’d aim for next.

      “PEETA!” she half-shouted, bouncing up and down. “WAKE UP YOU LAZY BUM.”

     “Jesus H. Christ, Delly,” he muttered, rolling over onto his back. He still didn’t open his eyes completely, only halfway, and peered up at her with distaste. “Perhaps I would be more inclined to wake up if your methods were more humane.”

     She flopped down on the mattress beside him and grinned.

     “Well, I was promised a trip to the famous _Le Cirque du Feu_ ,” she said, pronouncing the French more accurately than he could. “And a glimpse of the girl you’ve been pining for—she must be pretty hot. See what I did there? Because she’s the girl on fire?” Delly laughed her musical laugh and rolled off of the bed.

     “Are you okay?” he asked, sitting up and peering over the edge of the bed. Delly was still laughing in a heap on the floor, apparently unharmed. “Should I take that as a yes?”

      “Yes,” she said, stopping her laughter abruptly and hauling herself up off the floor. “But anyway, the show starts in a matter of minutes. Also, look what I found on the floor?” She held up his glasses. “Perhaps if you wear them, you’ll be able to see from the _crappy seats we’re going to get._ ”

     Peeta took the glasses and inspected them, finding a smudge on one lens and wiping it off on the bottom of his t-shirt. Delly walked around the room and proceeded to clean his room, throwing out the garbage that littered the area around his desk, turning all the spines on his bookshelf in the right direction, and various other things that she always did and he had stopped questioning. As obnoxious and rough-edged as Delly was, she kept things neat and was a bit of a perfectionist when it came to appearances.

     “Okay. Let’s go,” said Peeta, slipping his feet into an awful pair of man sandals, but he didn’t care—putting on actual socks would be too much effort. Delly scrutinized his choice of footwear for only a moment before shrugging it off and waltzing out of his room, her skirt swaying. Delly rarely wore anything but a skirt or a dress, and it was for a very simple reason: they were easy, made her feel pretty, and could easily be moved aside for between-the-legs access. She had told him all of this in the late hours of the night, which to Delly were times of candor or deep and meaningful conversation. It was midnight when Peeta had told her about Katniss, and that she was a huge reason why he was so interested in the Circus, and it had been nearly 2 AM when Delly had confessed that she was always afraid what her mother would think of her, if she was still around. She sought out her dad’s approval mostly because he was once in love with the woman she strived to connect with, and she ended up hiding things from him because he wasn’t _actually_ the person she really wanted.

     He knew these things, and she knew that he’d been terrified of his mother throughout his early childhood because of how much she yelled and stormed around, that he hated all reality TV shows, including the happy ones, and that he’d been born with a messed up leg and had to wear a brace a lot when he was younger. They weren’t exactly secrets, but the things that were not in plain sight, things they knew because they were the best of friends and had been inseparable since fourth grade.

     On the bus to the fairgrounds, Peeta wasn’t sure if he was excited to go back or not. The weird thing with Katniss was still bothering him, and he blushed every time he thought about it. In his mind’s eye, he watched her rub off her makeup, and he watched himself amble around her idiotically and be generally embarrassing. How could they ever match up, the graceful fire dancer and the clumsy, nerdy, baker’s boy?

      “Hey, could the other forty percent of your brain come back from Katnissland for five seconds?” asked Delly snarkily. He turned to look at her, sitting beside him on the seat and playing a game on his phone. She gestured to the screen, which was paused. “How do you do this level?”

     Glad for the distraction, Peeta walked her through the level. He managed to show her what to do and explain what would come next before the bus neared their stop and he had to pull the cord that notified the driver when to stop. They were let off right at the fairgrounds and had to weave their way through the cars that crowded the lawn to get to the Circus entrance. Delly waved to people she was friendly with and glared at people she disliked. A lot of the people going in this time were teenagers, some of which were from their school and some from the other school on the other side of town.

     Some guy from the football team sidled up beside them and said hello to Peeta, having recognized him as Cap’s brother. Then he talked to Delly, almost in a flirtatious way, which she was oblivious to. Peeta knew that if she was aware of the flirtation, she’d cut him off and say something along the lines of “you are definitely not my type”. She would not specify, and she would not mention that she wasn’t even single; she would just turn him down like that and leave him wondering where his shortcomings were.

       “Mellark,” she said once the football player had gone away. “I have high expectations for this evening. This damn circus better meet them.”

      “It will be stunning,” he said distantly in reply as they neared the gates, his eyes focused on the top of the main tent that was held so much higher above the rest.

     “Stunning. So if I’m not completely _stunned_ by the end of this, I’m doing it wrong?”

     “Exactly.”

   **** 

Performing with Gale after their disagreement was awkward, to say the least. The beginning of the act required a certain chemistry, a certain closeness, and they usually managed to pull it off quite well. The story behind the act was one of star-crossed lovers, and really the dance was supposed to be done by both of them…but Gale was squeamish about the flames and he really hated dancing.

     During the finale, she was meant to hold his hand in the chariot and look victorious or whatever, but when he reached to weave their fingers together, Katniss didn’t let him. Instead they just stood side by side and as soon as the chariot was stopped backstage, she hopped down and started to walk away.

      “Catnip, what the hell is the matter with you?” he called after her, but she chose not to reply. Instead she went to her dressing room and removed her costume, which was made specifically so she could do it by herself. Cinna understood her in a way other people sometimes didn’t, and this understanding was reflected in his designs for her. She struck him as independent, so he made the dress this way.

      In the mirror, she saw Prim slip into her little curtained space. She looked a trifle concerned, as she typically did when Katniss stormed off in a huff or something. Not that it was a common occurrence, really…she wasn’t _that_ moody.

     “Are you really that mad at him?” she asked, and Katniss only shrugged. “Kat…”

      “Prim, he’s thinking about leaving. Of course I’m upset!” she defended. She slipped out of the dress and pulled on the same clothes she’d already been wearing. Prim dutifully reached to undo her hair and then, once it was hanging loosely over her shoulders, she began to slowly wind it into a braid. “The Circus is his home, and everyone here is his family. What would he gain from leaving us behind?”

     “Katniss, he’s never felt like he belonged here,” Prim said with a sigh. “Even though he belongs just as much as you or me. He probably just wants to find a place where he fits in, outside the Circus.”

      Katniss didn’t say anything in return, just stood there as her sister braided her hair.

     “And he never said that he’d never visit, or cut us off completely. He wants to go to college, not permanently move to Bolivia.”

       “He’d still be leaving.”

      Prim sighed again. “You know, I’ve noticed that you’re always really upset when someone brings up leaving, or what life would be like without the Circus.”

      “Has Finnick been psychoanalyzing me?” asked Katniss sharply. “ _Again?_ ”

      Prim sighed heavily for another time as she tied off the braid, and Katniss made a sound to reflect her exasperation.

     “Stop sighing at me!”

     “He said you either have a really big attachment to the Circus and a problem with change,” Prim paused and pulled away, sitting down in the chair in the corner. She folded her legs up under her and tried to look as collected as possible before she continued. Katniss figured she was trying to tread lightly, so as not to end up with an infuriated Mockingjay in place of her sister. “Or it has something to do with Mom and Dad.”

      Katniss cringed.

      “If that was the case…it would be that you feel like they left you behind. Dad died, and Mom became detached…” Prim clasped her hands together, looking like a fucking shrink. “You and Dad were so close, and out of nowhere he was gone, and Mom didn’t help. She left you too, in a way…and I think you’re angrier about that because she chose to.”

     “Really, Prim, must you?” Katniss hissed at her sister. “I’m not in a good mood, and you decide to bring up my problems with our parents? Way to go, making it better. But if you need a reason, fine, I do have a problem with change and I do have a problem with the way I feel about my parents. I have never been over Dad’s death or what Mom did, or rather, what she didn’t do. Maybe that is why I’m acting like this, maybe it’s just because I’m damaged by what happened. It couldn’t be because I actually care about Gale and don’t want him to go, because that’s ridiculous.”

      “I’m sorry, I was just trying to get through to you,” said Prim sadly, and Katniss couldn’t stay angry. She wrapped her arms around Prim and sobbed into her shoulder for several minutes before pulling away. She wasn’t sure if Prim had a point, or if it was just a bunch of psychobabble, and she wasn’t really sure why she reacted to things the way she did. She just did, because it was the way she was. Angry, sullen, overdramatic, and her favorite, fiery.

      She liked the idea that there was something burning in her, some infinite bonfire surrounded by fuses waiting to be lit. She could be a girl on fire inside and out.

     “Are you going to walk the arena tonight?” asked Prim as she stood, and Katniss nodded. “I would join you, but I made plans with Rue. We’re going bowling.”

     “Yeah? Well go ahead,” she pushed Prim out of the dressing room, following closely behind. “Have fun and leave your cranky and hostile elder sister to scavenge the bleachers for garbage and free sunglasses.”

      “I will,” she said, heading to the trailer they shared, so she could change. Prim didn’t have a dressing room for various reasons, one being the fact she was too lazy to assemble one in the backstage area every time the Circus set up. Plus, she didn’t have the same aversion to being recognized and gawked at as Katniss did.

     As soon as she was gone, Katniss began to weave her way through the bustling backstage area, dodging the animal handlers and the sparks that Finnick was shooting from his fingers. She stopped and glared at him for a moment, but he didn’t offer an explanation, so eventually she started to move again. They weren’t even harmful—one spark hit her forearm as she walked away, but it just felt like he’d thrown a pencil at her or something.

      Walking the arena was something that Katniss had always done. She would stand just inside the stage entrance and watch as the crowds filed out, waiting for the last circusgoer to leave the performance tent. And then she’d check to make sure that no one lingered before stepping out under the lights again and shuffling around for a moment to take in the empty stands. It was one thing to spin around the stadium-shaped space while people marveled at her cleverly-designed costume that transformed before their eyes. It was another thing completely to stand there alone, with no one watching.

     Sometimes, when Prim wasn’t there, she’d dance. Sometimes she’d just close her eyes and breathe it in—the feeling of being alone in the quiet, without the roaring crowds. Today she stepped out with the desire to do the latter, just to relax and get some peace of mind. But that wouldn’t be what she got.

      As soon as she reached the center of the arena, her peace was thrown off course.

     “Katniss?” said a voice from behind her, echoing strangely against the walls of the near-empty tent. She hadn’t realized there was still someone here. When she turned, she saw him, making his way clumsily down the bleachers.

     “Peeta? What are you doing here?” she asked. Peeta stumbled and grabbed onto the railing. He was wearing different shoes, a stupid pair of Adidas sandals. His bright eyes sparkled through the lenses of big orange glasses. He must’ve gone home between shows. “Did you come to see two shows in a row?”

      “I brought my friend Delly,” he explained as he reached the bottom of the bleachers and leaned over the barrier that separated the stage and the stands. “But as soon as it was over she ran out to take a phone call. And then she texted me to say she was leaving without me.”

      “That still doesn’t answer my first question. Why are you in here? The performance is over.”

     “Oh, is it? I didn’t realize, seeing as there’s so much going on in here,” Peeta replied. Katniss raised her eyebrows. The floppy puppy of a boy had quite the sarcastic bite. “What are _you_ doing in here after the show?”

       “After the last show I come out here and clean the bleachers,” she said. “Don’t ask if there’s a person they pay to do that—there is, I just make his job easier.”

     “Okay, is that your only reason?” he asked, swinging himself up and over the barrier and landing with a thump. He steadied himself easily and started walking over, stopping just a few feet away.

      She didn’t know why she felt compelled to tell him, but she did. Perhaps it was the past, or the way his eyes never left her face as she stood there, considering his question.

     “It was something I did with my dad,” she finally answered. “Before he died. He liked to be helpful and at the same time, you can find a lot of weird shit that people leave behind.”

      Peeta nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets, looking out over the stands. She looked too, and even from here she could see the knocked over popcorn containers and lingering wrappers. When she looked back to him, he was no longer assessing the cleanliness of the bleachers, but staring at her with a blush coloring his cheeks.

      “Can…can I help?” he asked cautiously.

     Katniss nodded, and they went to work.


	4. Something New

**Chapter Three: Something New**

 

They started with the set of bleachers to the left of the entrance, picking up individual popcorn pieces and loose change. The next set brought forth a single floral patterned sock and the one after that had more popcorn and a wad of gum stuck to a seat. Peeta scraped it off with the pocket knife someone had left, and then they moved on.

      A few sections down, he swept a pair of cat-eyed sunglasses up off the floor and put them on over his own glasses.

     “Hey, Katniss,” he called up to her where she was clearing out the upper rows. She turned. “How do I look?”

       Katniss snorted. He had never pegged her as someone who snorted when they laughed, but there she was. Somehow knowing this made him even more drawn to her—perhaps she wasn’t as extraordinary and untouchable as he thought. It had never occurred to him before that Katniss Everdeen would be as she was: a normal, pretty girl who wore a baseball cap and cleaned out bleachers and snorted when she laughed. Knowing actual things about her made him want to know more—what was her favorite color, her greatest fear? Did she hate Valentine’s Day as much as he did? Had she ever been in love?

      At the very least, he thought, they could be friends.

     He kept the sunglasses on until he found a pair of aviators lying on the floor in a middle row. He took the cat-eyes and his orange glasses off and tucked them in his pocket, replacing them with this nice pair of shades. He didn’t say anything to Katniss this time; instead he waited for her to notice and to start laughing again.

      “No, but those ones actually look good on you,” she said.

     He took them off and sat down. “These? Really? These are douchebag sunglasses.”

     “All sunglasses are douchebag sunglasses if you put them on a douchebag,” said Katniss. It sounded an awful lot like something Delly would say, or perhaps like something he would say to her.

      “Is that how it works? Hm.” Peeta put them back on and struck a pose that was a little bit like the iconic Thinker. Katniss laughed and sat down beside him, close enough that if she were any closer, their shoulders and legs would be touching. He sat up straight again and looked at her, smiling hugely because he really couldn’t help it.

     To his surprise, she reached over and plucked the sunglasses off of him, putting them on and pushing them up into her hair. She’d taken off her hat and it now dangled from her belt loop. She smiled at him and took the orange glasses from his hand, putting them back on.

     “There. That’s better.”

     “Wha..what?” he stammered.

      “Don’t hide your eyes, ever. They’re your best feature,” she said. He blinked at her, and she stood up, her baseball cap bumping against her leg. “Now let’s get back to work. We’re already halfway done, we can’t stop now.”

     And so they went back to work, cleaning out the bleachers and dumping armfuls of garbage in big gray rolling trashcans like the ones in Peeta’s school cafeteria. By the time they were done, they’d found two more pairs of sunglasses, a deck of Old Maid cards, an unopened bag of Spongebob fruit snacks and a baby’s rattle. They stood together in the center of the arena and looked out over the cleared bleachers before Katniss motioned for him to stay put and ran backstage.

     She came back lugging a pair of folding chairs and a scruffy stagehand came in behind her with a small table. She slipped him a five and wished him the best before setting it all up.

     “Peeta,” she said. “May I challenge you to a game of Old Maid? Winner gets these and the fruit snacks.” She gestured to the aviators, still perched on top of her head.

     “Before accepting this challenge,” he replied. “I’d like to add to the stakes.”

      _What the hell was he doing?_

     “Loser takes winner out for pizza,” he said, and he regretted it as Katniss’s eyes narrowed. Shit. He had offended her, he’d fucked up and ruined everything.

     “You’re on, baker boy,” she said, removing the rubber band from the deck. “I hope you’ve got the cash to take me out to the best pizza place in Panem City.”

    ****

On his bus ride home, Peeta ate Spongebob fruit snacks and wore a pair of aviators that he hoped didn’t make him look like a complete dork. It was late, and the sun was hanging low in the sky when he finally got off at the stop on the corner. He lived in an older subdivision, in a creaky old house with a screen porch and a fresh paint job, though you could still tell that it’d been around since before his parents were even thought of.

     He walked down the sidewalk and onto his family’s property with his hands shoved in his pockets, one of them wrapped tightly around his phone. Before leaving the Circus, he’d written the number on Katniss’s arm, since she’d asked him to…obviously she wasn’t going to call him right now, but the fact that she could was enough. The front steps creaked under his feet and the porch door cried out when he swung it open. The actual door to the house was nicer than its surroundings, having been replaced somewhat recently, and when he tried he found it was unlocked.

      “Unlocked doors make it easy for the riffraff to get in!” he called into the house. “What if I was a robber? Or a kidnapper or an arsonist?”

     “Oh shit, Walden,” Cap hollered from his room. “You forgot to lock the door! I think there’s an arsonist in the house!”

      “If he sets it on fire, I’ll grab the cookbooks and you grab the Xbox. Everything Peeta owns can burn!” the other brother yelled back.

     Peeta vaulted up the stairs and stumbled only once, running down the hallway to his brother’s rooms, which were directly opposite from each other. He went for Walden first, kicking at the beanbag chair he was sitting in, watching Star Wars with a bowl of popcorn. Walden did not budge, only looked up at his youngest brother with amusement in his eyes and a suppressed smile on his lips.

     “Want some popcorn, young fireboy?” asked Walden.

     Peeta took a handful and shoved it in his mouth. He then turned to his other brother, who had appeared in the doorway.

     “He’s in love with a girl who sets herself on fire for a living,” said Cap. “Fireboy is actually a good term for him.”

     “Shut up,” said Peeta around his mouthful of popcorn. His sunglasses had been pushed up into his hair and his actual glasses were in his pocket with his phone. He switched them quickly and ended up almost jabbing himself in the eye with the earpiece. “I barely know her.”

     “You’re still in love with her,” Walden said.

     “No.”

     “Yes,” Cap countered. “You are. You mumble her fucking name in your sleep, bro.”

      Peeta blushed furiously and Cap sighed. He walked over and slung his arm around Peeta’s shoulders, and Peeta noted that he smelled like he’d been working out or something. Gross.

     “Hey, buddy, it’s okay. You know I support your adoration for the circus,” he said. “I support anything that makes you happy, as long as it’s not violent or something.”

     “Same,” said Walden, though he was staring at Princess Leia’s metal bikini and munching on Orville Redenbacher’s.

     “Just. Don’t fall so hard and expect her to be there to catch you, Peeta,” Cap advised. He had stopped joking and was serious now, his eyes wide and cautious. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

      “Yeah, well,” Peeta shook him off. “Shows what you know.”

     “What?” Cap looked rather confused, and Peeta tried to look cool by puffing his chest out and crossing his arms at the same time, but it didn’t really work out well.

     “I talked to her after the show today. Both shows,” he boasted. “And I gave her my number. She remembered me, and better yet, she seems to like me. We might even go out tomorrow.”

     Walden spat popcorn on the floor and turned in his beanbag chair. Cap looked shell-shocked.

     “Well good for you, buddy,” Walden congratulated. He lightly punched Peeta’s good leg and then turned back to the buzzing light sabers and scantily clad princess that he so loved.

     “Peeta…” Cap didn’t seem to know what to say.

     Peeta just smirked and moved past him, walking to his own room. Sure, he’d left out the bit where he walked into the ladies’ room and just came across her by chance after the late show. And he’d left out the part where they walked the arena and made a bet over a game of Old Maid, which resulted in Katniss being obligated to take him out for pizza.

      It just frustrated him immensely that Cap had thought the same thing that Peeta himself had. That he didn’t have a chance with Katniss because she was from the Circus, or because she was out of his league. It was one thing if he was self-deprecating and didn’t have faith that he could even talk to her without fainting, but it was another thing entirely if his brother was in agreement. His brother, who was usually supportive and uplifting, had believed that Peeta wouldn’t be able to get Katniss’s attention. That she’d only see a nerdy kid with huge glasses and little bit of a limp.  

     He was sure that she saw more than that. Didn’t she?

 ****

The circus closed an hour or so after nightfall. As the residents of the town were ushered out the gates, Katniss wandered the paths and ate a giant soft pretzel. She watched as the three or four vendors they had packed up their foodstuffs and the contents of their cash registers, and she watched the gamekeepers pull the metal lattices down over their booths. She ran into Finnick as he went around with a lantern in his belt loop, snapping his fingers to extinguish the colored torches.

      “What’s on your arm?” he asked curiously as she fell into step beside him.

      “Nothing,” she said dismissively, breaking off a bit of her pretzel. “Want some?”

      Finnick took the piece of dough from her and chewed it extremely slowly. They passed a pair of purple torches and in the spirit of showmanship, he simply blew in their direction to put them out.

      “Honestly, you claim to know everything,” said Katniss. “So why must you ask what’s on my arm instead of just telling me?”

      “Is it what Prim said? I never intended for that to get back to you,” Finnick sighed. “I was just trying to…help the others understand. Gale. Prim. People get worried when you stomp off in a huff.”

     “Meh.”

      “I don’t know everything,” he said. “Nobody knows everything. We aren’t meant to.”

     “Must you be so deep, magic man?” she asked. “It’s a phone number, okay? Chill out, I’m not even upset anymore.”  

     “Who might this phone number belong to?” asked Finn, reaching for her arm and reading the number. “The name is smudged. I only see a P and an E. Petra? Peter? Penelope Persimmons?”

     “Peeta,” she said, humoring him. She pulled her arm back and took another bite of pretzel. “His name is Peeta.”

     “ _I TOLD YOU_ ,” bellowed Finnick, and he startled a bird that had settled somewhere nearby. It took to the sky with a rustle of feathers. “I told you it was in your cards. Are you going to go on a date with him?”

     “No. I lost a bet with him and have to take him out for pizza,” she said. “It’s not the same thing.”

     “I bet he wants it to be a date,” said Finnick.

     “Doubtful.”

     “Why? You’re actually one of the most attractive people I know, and that’s saying a lot,” he said, “seeing as I know myself quite well. But that aside, you’ve got a killer personality and the kind of walls that some guys are dying to break down.”

     “I don’t have walls,” she protested.

     “Yes you do,” Finnick said. “If you like him, let him in. There’s love in your cards, Katniss.”

     “Oh, shut up,” she said, and she started across the lawn towards her trailer. Finnick followed closely behind, quietly and smugly until she turned and shooed him. He didn’t go away while she looked, but when she turned her back he must have, because by the time she got to the steps of the trailer she was walking alone.

 ****

His phone rang and woke him so abruptly that he nearly fell out of bed. He thought it might be Delly’s typical wake up call, or perhaps that he had slept later than he thought and his father was calling him because he was late for his shift at the bakery. He didn’t even look before answering, rather groggily, with an obligatory “Hello?”

     “Peeta? Please tell me I dialed the right number, the goddamn sharpie got a little smudged,” said a familiar voice, distorted minimally through the phone’s speaker. Peeta fell back on the bed and smiled to himself—the events of the day before hadn’t been imagined after all.

      “No, no,” he said, using his best impression of an old woman. “There is no Peter here. Only old Mrs. Mayberry.”

     “Shit! I mean, I’m sorry, I mean crap? Is that better?” Katniss began stumbling over her own words, which made Peeta want to burst out laughing. “Do you know where I can, um, find a Peeta Mellark?”

     “Katniss,” he said in his own voice, though it was a bit strained with laughter. “Calm down, it’s me. I can’t believe you fell for that.”

     “Damn you, Peeta,” she said. “I hope you have nightmares where you become old Mrs. Mayberry and are forced to look at yourself naked.”

     Peeta just laughed. He couldn’t help it—her flustered anger paired with the nonsense she was spouting pushed him to do it. He laughed and he laughed, gasping for air, loud enough that Cap appeared in the doorway and gave him a quizzical look. God, when was the last time he had laughed like that?

     “Dude, are you okay?” asked his brother. He turned his head towards him, beaming, which made Cap chuckle. Probably at the way his hair flopped and his mouth hung slightly open to reveal the line of his retainer over his teeth. “I will take that as a yes.”

     “Go away, Capulet.”

     “Capulet?” Katniss questioned as Cap flipped him off and walked away. “Is your brother seriously named Capulet?”

     “Yes. My oldest brother is Walden, like Walden Pond,” Peeta explained. “Cap is like, Juliet Capulet, ha. My mother wanted to name me Petra, like a character in some other book, but then I was a boy and she just named me after a bread instead.”

     “Wow.”

     “Yes. My mother is strange brand of human being,” he said. “A minefield and a literature buff. She’ll probably try and take all the books in the house in the divorce settlement.”

    “Your parents...? Shit luck, Peeta, I’m sorry,” she said.

      “Don’t be. I saw it coming from a mile away,” Peeta said casually. He didn’t care anymore. His parents didn’t love each other any longer, why should they stay together? “I think they’ll be happier apart anyway.”

     “Oh.” He could hear her moving around, running water and brushing her teeth. He waited. She spat. “Sorry. Once the daily routine starts, it’s hard to stop it.”

     “It’s fine,” he said. It was more than fine, actually. Hearing her start the day was giving him an insight into her life, which was pretty much all he’d wanted. “I don’t mind. Why didn’t you wait to call?”

     She dropped her toothbrush.

     “I honestly didn’t think of that. I called because I slept in and missed breakfast,” said Katniss. “And I was wondering if you didn’t mind having that pizza date at eight-thirty in the morning.”

     “Pizza for breakfast is synonymous with heaven on earth.”

     “I will take that as a yes,” said Katniss. “Now make sure to wear something pretty, I’ll pick you up in like, ten minutes. Where do you live?”

     He hesitated, but he gave her the address and she fumbled around for something to write it down on. Then she had him repeat it, thanked him, and hung up.

     Peeta dropped his phone on the bed and rummaged furiously through his dresser for the blue shirt that Delly thought looked best on him. It had green stripes near the bottom and kind of hugged his body in a certain way that had made her whistle, though he wasn’t sure if she was mocking him or not. He then tracked down a pair of cargo pants that hid the scars on his lower leg—sometimes he let them show, but not often, and certainly not today. His mother had always shied away from them and wanted to hide them, though they weren’t anything to be ashamed of.

     If anything, his scars were a good conversation starter.

     Peeta put on these clothes and combed his hair, and then he hunted down his socks and high tops. He was tying the right one when he heard a honking outside, and Cap shouted up the stairs.

      “Your circus girl is here!”

     “Shut up, Cap!” he said. He heard Walden cursing from his bedroom, and agreeing that Cap needed to shut up because he was trying to get some beauty sleep. Peeta stumbled towards the window and looked out at the black van that had pulled up on the curb. The Circus’s symbol had been painted on the side, the flaming mockingjay with an arrow in its beak. Katniss was climbing out and heading towards the house.

      Peeta bolted downstairs as quickly as he could, hoping to get there before she could knock, before Cap could answer the door.

     And he almost made it. He stood in the living room with one shoe on, one shoe in his hand as Katniss rapped lightly on the door and Cap lingered just inside so he could be the one to throw it open. And he did, with a flourish, and Peeta cursed at him.

    Katniss stood there with an amused look on her face. She wore some sort of flowy tank-top thing and a denim skirt with sneakers that were like his, but pale green instead of orange. He wondered if his eyes looked like they were popping out of his skull or if it was obvious that he dropped his shoe specifically because the sight of her threw him off so much that he couldn’t hold on to things.

     “Um. Hi,” he said, leaning down and grabbing his shoe. “Good morning. Again.”

     “Morning,” she replied. “And…which one is this?” She pointed to Cap.

     “Cap,” said Cap. “Nice to meet you. You threatened to beat me up once.”

     “I was six. Jesus, you guys have good memories,” Katniss said, pushing past Cap and into the house. Peeta was fumbling with his shoelaces and watching her wander around the room, which was still just as empty as it had been before. She didn’t ask where the couch was; instead she looked at the various artworks that the boys had made at school since they were young. Peeta’s skill was dominant, with Cap being moderately good and Walden being really kind of shitty.

     Once Peeta had tied his shoe and hauled himself to his feet with minimal difficulty, he said, “Let’s go before my brother figures out a way to embarrass me enough that I have to wear a paper bag on my head for the rest of the month.”

     “It’d be an improvement,” said Cap. Katniss, who was already walking towards the door, stepped on his foot and he winced.

      “Oops,” she said, smirking. There was some sort of evil glint in her eyes, and Peeta had to smile. So did Cap.

     “She’s feisty,” he said, looking to Peeta. “Guess I don’t have to worry that she won’t look out for you. I like that.”

     Still grinning, Peeta pushed past him and headed outside to join Katniss in the conspicuous Circus van. She climbed into the driver’s seat and waited for him, smiling when he yanked the door open and shook the whole car. He tried to apologize, but she didn’t let him. Instead she buckled up and revved the engine, and before he knew it they were turning off his street and heading south, towards the fairgrounds.

     "You know, the pizza place is that way…” he said, pointing north. Katniss grinned.

     “I know somewhere that’s better.”

     “Do you, do you really?” he asked, leaning back in his seat. “Have you even had pizza from Panem City’s Finest?”

      “Is that actually what it’s called? Jeez,” said Katniss, glancing over without looking away from the road. “What is it with this place and labeling everything Panem City this, Panem City that? It’s like a two year old going _mine, mine, mine_.”

     Peeta shrugged. “I guess that’s just how it is…I never really noticed.”

     The rest of the drive to the fairgrounds, Peeta awkwardly drummed his fingers on his legs and the armrest, and Katniss hummed a soft tune that he recognized from elementary school music class.

     “ _The Hanging Tree_? Terrifying song,” said Peeta. “I cried when I found out what it was about. Same with _Ring Around the Rosie_.”

     “My dad would sing it backstage a lot when we were little,” she said. “Me and my sister Prim. I guess I kind of absorbed it, though he never actually taught me the words.”

     “I learned it in school.”

     “I went to school for a year when I was like, twelve. We took a break from the Circus when my dad died,” Katniss said conversationally. She didn’t bat an eyelash mentioning her father, and Peeta wouldn’t expect her to.

     When they got there, Katniss parked in the back near the clusters of trailers and other Circus vans. She walked out onto the deserted fairgrounds like she belonged there, and Peeta sauntered after her with his hands shoved in his pockets because he certainly didn’t. She led him to a vendor’s booth with a bunch of pizza ovens and whatnot and she let herself in.

     “I had Sae bring out what we’d need,” she said, opening a cooler under the preparation counter and pulling out a couple of dough balls, some cheese, and various pizza toppings. She then grabbed an apron and tossed one at him, which, surprisingly, he caught before it fell to the ground in a pile at his feet. “Now let’s get cooking.”

     They each made a pizza—Katniss’s had just about everything on it and Peeta just had a few pieces of Pepperoni on one side, hidden beneath a lot of cheese. When they were baking, the two of them sat on the floor of the booth and talked. He asked about her sister, and she asked about his brothers. They talked about his school and her lack thereof, and he even surprised himself by pulling up the leg of his pants and showing off his scars.

     “I had this birth defect,” he explained. “Part of my bone didn’t grow right. So there was a lot of surgeries and stuff involved…I was lucky to get to keep the leg actually. I still have to wear a brace sometimes, when it really bothers me.”

     “I was wondering…you have a limp. But it’s not bad!” she hurried to say the last part, as if she was afraid of offending him. But honestly, he didn’t care. She’d noticed, sure, and that was kind of embarrassing…but didn’t it also mean that she had been paying attention? “Does it hurt you right now?”

     “No,” he shook his head. “I mean, if I step on it wrong or hit it really hard, it would. But usually it doesn’t really hurt anymore.”

     “Hm. I have a scar from when I fell off a horse once, but that’s not very interesting,” she said, sighing. “Oh, I have a burn scar on my foot too, from dropping a hot pot of boiling water.”

     “Not from playing with fire?” he asked with a laugh. Katniss smirked.

     “I’ve never burned myself performing. Ever.”

      Peeta must’ve looked shocked, which must’ve been what made her laugh.

      “I’ll tell you a secret,” she said softly, leaning closer so she could whisper and he could still hear. “The fire on my arrows is real, and so is what Finnick conjures…but on the dress it isn’t real at all. It’s just part of the design.”

     “Really?” he asked. “But they look so real.”

     “That’s the point…here, let me show you something,” she said, and her fingers found a chain around her neck. “My dad helped in developing the synthetic fire that we used for the breathers and stuff when we still had them. Before he died, he made me this.”

     She opened her hand to show him a golden locket with the mockingjay symbol of the Circus engraved on the surface. There was a button on the side to open it, and when she pushed it, the locket snapped open. A little flame sparked to life inside, and in it was a glowing picture of Katniss and her father…the same one that had been paired with the obituary on the Circus website so many years ago.

     “That’s amazing, Katniss…” he murmured. He watched in awe when she dipped her finger into the flame, and all it did was flicker. Then she closed the locket and showed him her hand, the flesh just as unmarked as it had been before.

     “My dad was a genius.”

    She was closer now than she’d been, so close that he could see the darker gray strands woven into her icy grey eyes. There were a pair of birthmarks under her right eye and her face was framed by the hair that had fallen from her braid. Her pale pink lips were turned up in a smile, and Peeta felt like he wanted more than anything to kiss her right there, in that moment.

     He might’ve actually done it, if it weren’t for the tonal screeching that went off, telling them that the pizza was done.  


	5. Velveteen Rabbit

**Chapter Four: Velveteen Rabbit**

 

She wiped her fingers of pizza residue for the umpteenth time and wadded up the napkin, throwing it at the top of Peeta’s head. Her target would’ve been his face, if he hadn’t been looking down at his remaining slices of pizza. The napkin ball made contact, and then fell down to his plate, and Peeta looked up with a half-startled look on his face.

     “Is that how it is, then? Throwing napkins at me when I am defenseless?” Peeta huffed, propping his elbows up on the picnic table. The paint was chipping and Katniss had already had to squeeze a splinter out of her palm, but they still sat there and ignored the fact that they’d picked the worst table on the fairgrounds.

    “Yes.”

     Peeta wrinkled his nose and went back to eating his boring cheese pizza. He was a slow eater, she thought. The pizzas they made weren’t large and only had six slices each, and Katniss had gotten through hers rather quickly. Peeta still had two pieces left and he was taking his time with them, chewing slowly and making conversation between bites. Perhaps she was just used to eating fast because she had places to be, or he was one of those people who made sure to savor everything.

      If that was the case, then she’d admire him for it. So many people she’d met and seen were in the business of wanting instant gratification and not in the business of stopping and smelling the roses. Katniss herself was somewhere in between, since her life was a plethora of excitement and movement and impermanence. She still enjoyed the little things, and she often did want to smell figurative roses (she didn’t like the smell of actual ones), but her lifestyle didn’t always allow it.

     Peeta’s phone vibrated against the table, but he didn’t even spare it a glance. Instead he told her a story about when he was little and had to have x-rays done a lot, and how he carried a beanie baby around as a security blanket of sorts.

     “It was Cap’s, but when I started walking around and talking and stuff I really seemed to like it,” said Peeta. “So he just ended up giving it to me. It was this fluffy orange thing and I wanted to call it Tangerine, but I couldn’t pronounce it so it was just Grr. Anyway, I took Grr everywhere, especially when I had to go to the doctor. I was like, five or six when I got concerned that perhaps Grr might have bone problems too.”

     Katniss couldn’t help but laugh, and Peeta smiled.

     “I demanded that he be x-rayed, and they actually agreed to it. It just showed all his beans and they put a heart sticker in his chest area,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “They had to assure me that it was all good and Grr was fine…I took that picture home and hung it up on the fridge, and surprisingly, it’s still there. I thought my mom would take it down eventually, but she never did.”

      “Do you still have the monkey?” asked Katniss. He laughed and nibbled on the end of his pizza crust, his blue eyes lit up so brightly that she was almost surprised they didn’t actually glow.

     “Hell yes I do. He has a place of honor on my bookshelf,” said Peeta. He smiled without showing his teeth. When they had started eating he’d been strangely embarrassed when he had to take out his retainer and put it in this orange case that he kept in his pocket, but then Katniss had mentioned that Prim had something similar that she had to wear at night.

     “I still have my baby blanket,” she admitted to him. “I keep it folded up under my pillow. Prim has this old cat toy that she’s loved up so much that three of its limbs had to be sewn back on at least once and it lost an eye in Salt Lake City.”

     “You’ve been to a lot of places,” mused Peeta. “Funny, I’ve only ever been here and Disneyworld.”

     “I went there once,” said Katniss. She smiled at the memory. They had been nearby for a show and Prim was too little to enjoy it, so she and her father had just jumped into a Circus van and took a day trip to the Magic Kingdom. Dad’s acts were cancelled for the day and he was reprimanded upon their return, but he didn’t seem to care—he had taken his little girl to the happiest place on earth, and it was worth the consequences of skipping out on the show. “It was pretty great.”

     “I bet I had more fun. I didn’t have to wait in line,” Peeta said with a laugh. “Handicap pass.”

     Katniss tossed an uneaten pizza crust at him. She didn’t like the crusts, and she liked the wide-eyed surprised look he got whenever she threw something in his general direction. This time he even fumbled to catch it, but it landed in his lap and then slid to the ground. Peeta sighed and reached to pick it up, and while he was down, she threw another one so that it landed on his plate.

     “ _Katniss_ ,” he sighed, looking only slightly miffed. That seemed to be all he had to say on the matter.

     She watched him like a hawk as he finished his pizza, and then she made him help her clean up. He protested once, claiming since she had been the loser of the Old Maid game that the least she could do would be cleaning up, but she wasn’t about to fold that quickly. She had glared at him until he started gathering up his garbage and they walked together to the painted trash can a ways down the path.

     “Hey,” she said. “I have an idea, if you’ve got the time.”

     Peeta dumped everything he was carrying into the trash can and wiped his hands off on his shirt. He cocked his head to one side, considering what she’d said. “I’ll bite. What are you thinking?”

     “Another game, another challenge,” she said, grinning at him. “You pick the game, I pick the stakes, and I reclaim my status as the winningest winner of winning.”

     Peeta stood back and thoughtfully stroked his chin for a moment, and then he patted his pockets in search of something. He came up with his phone, but that didn’t appear to be the actual thing he wanted. “Shit,” he said, turning a different shade of red than the ones she’d already seen.

     “What?”

     “Well, I accept the challenge,” said Peeta, his voice strained. “But first, we have to find my retainer.”

 ****

Since he’d sent her a vague text this morning, informing her of the whole pizza-for-breakfast-with-Katniss thing, Delly had been trying to contact him with impressive determination. She’d called and texted and caused his phone to experience multiple seizure-like episodes over the course of the hour. He ignored her, seeing as he had better things to do, especially once he had dropped his retainer case into a trash can and had to rummage through it for the better part of five minutes and basically humiliate himself in front of Katniss for about the eightieth time. If it had been his goal to make himself seem like a total dweeb and further destroy his what little chance he had with her, then he had certainly succeeded.

     Once he’d actually found the retainer, Peeta went off to the bathroom to wash his hands and the case and reflect upon how fucking pissed at himself he was. Not only had he dropped his retainer into the garbage, which was disgusting and embarrassing in its own right, but he had also done it in front of the girl he admittedly had quite the crush on.

     “Fucking fuck,” he muttered to himself as he walked into the men’s room (he double checked) and turned on one of the faucets. “Really smooth, Peeta, you embarrassing fuck.”

     He washed everything off like twice before feeling all right to put his retainer in his mouth and the case in his pocket. Then, because he was alone now, he whipped out his phone and finally responded to Delly by speed-dialing her and leaning back against the counter as he waited for her to pick up. It didn’t take long—she was probably clutching her phone in a death grip or something, waiting to hear from him.

     “I’m hopeless,” he said before she could even say hello.

     “What happened?” asked Delly around a mouthful of food. “Peeta, it probably wasn’t nearly as bad as you think. I mean, you already walked into the wrong bathroom in front of this girl and she wasn’t deterred.”

     “Is that equivalent with digging through a garbage can?” he grumbled. “God, at least I didn’t let her help me.”

     Delly sighed. “That’s rough, man, but understandable. She’s not going to hold this against you, I promise. I know the way girls’ minds work, Mellark, I am both a girl myself and wooer of them. I mean, I haven’t met her, but if she’s cool enough to set aside the whole bathroom thing then she’s certainly going to be cool about this too.”

     There was a knocking on the bathroom door, and he lost his balance and cursed.

    “Dude, are you okay?” Delly asked as the door creaked open and Peeta steadied himself with a hand on the counter.

     “Peeta?” Katniss called. “Is everything all right?”

     “Fine. I’m fine,” he said to both of them. Then, quietly so only Delly could hear, he quickly added, “Gotta go I’ll catch you later probably bye,” and hung up.

     “Can I come in?” asked Katniss.

     “What? Yes. Of course. Sure.” Peeta shoved his hands through his hair and tried to make himself appear at least a little calmer than he actually was. Not that it would actually work, since his facial expressions generally had a mind of their own and even if he managed to look impassive, his eyes would give him away. “Totally. Absolutely.”

     He mentally hit himself again for answering in the affirmative so many times. She caught his meaning fine the first time around.

     She waltzed in without blinking and leaned against the wall opposite him, crossing her arms and looking ever-so-slightly concerned. Under the florescent lighting that flickered every two minutes, the Aztec print of her tank top looked brighter, and her eyes looked paler and somehow more piercing. No, they were inquisitive, searching, cautious.

      “You seemed upset, so I followed you…” she said, shifting against the wall and guiding a strand of hair behind her ear. “And I just realized now that it’s a bit like an invasion of privacy, but I just wanted to make sure you weren’t like, about to have a breakdown.”

     Peeta laughed shortly because that was exactly what he’d been about to do.

     “Peeta,” she said. “What’s wrong? Did I say or do something? I swear, the last thing I want is to offend you.”

     “It’s not you, it’s me,” he said and avoided her eyes. He folded his arms, mirroring her without realizing, and stared at some spot on the wall above her head.

     “That’s a break-up line,” Katniss replied with a good amount of snark in her voice, enough that he found himself smirking. The idea that he’d ever stoop low enough to break up with someone that way, especially someone like her, was ludicrous. The idea that he’d break up with her at all was laughable, considering the fact that he didn’t have much of a chance with her in the first place. If some miracle happened and he ended up with her, he doubted he’d ever let go.

      “Hell, if I broke up with _you_ I’d check myself into a psych ward the next day,” he muttered.

     “Peeta.”

     “What? I think very highly of you, okay?” his words were rushed and technically untrue. He did more than ‘think highly’ of Katniss Everdeen. He kind of obsessed over her, hardcore fangirled, crushed on her to the point that he would sit there and fantasize just what it would feel like to thread his fingers through hers. “If there was any relationship to end you can bet your ass it wouldn’t be me to end it.”

     “Peeta…” She stood up straighter and uncrossed her arms, but then she crossed them again. He should’ve stopped talking, since every word he said was a shovelful of dirt, digging him deeper into the hole he was tumbling into. He should have shut his mouth and let her think what she wanted, let himself be embarrassed but not debilitatingly so, but having now admitted that there was a part of him that felt for her was like having blown a hole through a dam.

     “But there wouldn’t be. Of course not,” he said with a bitter laugh. “I am a small town dork with oversized glasses and proclivity for watching British television and spending all night on the internet. I bump into things and spill and injure myself on a regular basis and I have a fucking bulletin board dedicated to my love of the Circus. I am, to put it simply, nowhere near your league.”

     “Peeta, shut up.”

     “My image of you has changed since I walked into that bathroom,” he said, pointing in the direction of the ladies’ room on the other side of the wall. “You stopped being surreal and goddess-like and started being real. Every moment I spend with you, you are more real to me, and like some reverse velveteen rabbit shit, the realer you are the more I care.”

     “Peeta,” said Katniss, stepping away from the wall and closer to him. “Calm. Down.”

     He had been pacing since he mentioned his clumsiness and had been repeatedly shoving his hands through his hair and now that he looked, his reflection made him look so frazzled that it was nearly terrifying. But he couldn’t stop digging this hole, pulling apart the pieces of everything he’d been feeling and assaulting himself with what it all meant, chipping away at his psyche.

     “I continually make an ass of myself in front of you and I should just stop, should just walk away right now because it would be better for me, but I really, really do not want to do that,” he said, his voice breathy and shaking. He wasn’t going to cry so much as actually have the breakdown that Katniss had mentioned. “Katniss Everdeen, you had me at ‘ _I know how to beat them up if I have to_ ’, but I wasn’t really screwed until we walked the arena. When I heard you laugh and when you told me I could pull off that pair of sunglasses. You must think I’m a freak, confessing it all, making a big deal of nothing. God, is it getting hotter in here?”

      His face was a furious shade of red and the air around him seemed heavy. How was he breathing? How was he standing? Why was he even making such a fuss about this? He needed to hold onto something, so he latched onto the counter and stared at the square floor tiles, noting that one of them to the left of his right foot was cracked down the middle. Then a pair of green sneakers edged into his line of vision, the tip of the toes lined up with the toes of his orange ones.

     “Hey, Peeta?” she whispered, and he lifted his head to hold her eyes. “Are you okay?”

     “Getting there,” he replied, his voice hoarse and croaky now. He hung his head again and looked to his hands, gripping the edge of the counter with white knuckles. “Sorry.”

     “No, no, don’t apologize,” Katniss said. “Just breathe, okay?”

     He breathed easier with her soothing tones and sheer proximity, with the way she put her hands on his shoulders. She might’ve been the cause of his distress, to some degree, but she was also the one pulling him back into normality. When he could relax again and turn to look at her, he was met with a close-up view of her face again, closer than before in the pizza booth. Her eyes were deer-in-the-headlights wide and brimming with a bunch of emotions that Peeta didn’t recognize for various reasons, one being that he didn’t know her that well, another being that he wasn’t well versed in reading people’s emotions by their eyeballs. 

     And then, very abruptly, she leaned in closer, closed her eyes, and kissed him.

     Peeta had been kissed before by great aunts and grandmothers and such, on his cheeks and forehead and in a few uncomfortable situations, his mouth. But he hadn't been kissed the way Katniss kissed him, with a soft brush of lips and the sliding movement of her hands from his shoulders to the base of his neck. As small as it was, it sent a shiver down his spine and provoked an acrobatics act in his gut, a pleasant sort of flipping and stirring that was completely welcome. A feeling that lingered even after she pulled away.

     "I have no explanation for that," she said.

     "You don't need one," he replied, reeling her back in and hesitantly pressing his mouth to hers again, not quite sure how to kiss properly but figuring it out as he went. He didn't think he was very good at it, so he tried to mimic every movement of her lips as they moved against his, softer than he'd thought they'd be. Their noses bumped and so did their teeth, at some point, but Katniss had a way of diverting his attention from that—she would ease back and open her eyes and capture him in them, or she would laugh lightly and kiss him again. She was clearly more experienced than he was, but not by much.

     They didn't actually stand there very long, but to Peeta it was as good as a lifetime. And when it was over and Katniss drew away completely, he was content and comfortable when he leaned back against the counter again as she stood across the room and smirked at him.

     "So, are you still up for that challenge?" she asked. "Loser takes winner to the diner this evening. I could go for a burger."

     "Balloon darts," said Peeta.

     "Balloon darts it is," she said, turning and striding out of the bathroom with her braid trailing behind her. Katniss Everdeen, not so much the girl on fire, not so much the Mockingjay. Katniss was Katniss, slightly impulsive, nurturing, with a loud laugh and a smile that glowed as bright as any. In that moment, she was everything he ever wanted.

     And she was most likely about to kick his ass in a game of balloon darts.


	6. The Easy Feelings

**Chapter Five: The Easy Feelings**

 

Katniss sent another dart flying, and it pierced a blue balloon that was slightly bigger than the ones surrounding it, and it popped obnoxiously as she cheered for herself. Then she turned to Peeta, picking up another dart, holding it out to him with this ridiculous smirk on her face as she said, “Your turn, baker boy.”

     He had kissed her. He could hardly believe it. And now they were just casually throwing darts at balloons and he was losing by a lot, but it didn’t matter because he had kissed Katniss Everdeen. He would happily take her out for a burger and maybe a milkshake and he’d happily drive her back to wherever she was staying and he would be more than happy to kiss her goodnight if she let him—he could already see it in his mind’s eye, more fathomable than ever, him leaning in and brushing her hair out of her face as she looked up at him, and he would lower his mouth down to hers…

     “Peeta,” she said, shattering his fantasy. She was wiggling the dart in her hand, still waiting for him to take it. “Earth to Peeta, we don’t recall signing the papers saying you could go up into space.”

     He grinned and took the dart from her, sending it flying towards the balloons. It stuck in the board between a purple and a yellow balloon for about a second before it tumbled down to the floor of the booth. Katniss laughed.

     “I win,” she said.

      “I knew you would,” he replied. “Because, you know, I didn’t bring my glasses.”

      “Sure, that’s definitely why,” Katniss said, crossing her arms. “I’m sure you have great aim when you are wearing them.”

    He didn’t. His aim was shit. He couldn’t throw anything without missing or hitting somebody in inconvenient places. Memories of playing ball with his brothers came to mind, and they more often than not ended with somebody holding an icepack to his head or, in a few cases, his crotch.

      But it didn’t matter; Katniss seemed to like him anyway.

     She let her arms fall back to her sides and looked up at the sky, squinting. When she asked him for the time, he told her it was exactly 10:26, according to both his watch and the screen of his cell phone. Also according to his cell phone, he had missed three calls and nine text messages, mostly from Delly demanding to know what was happening. She seemed to have given up just a few minutes ago, but he knew he would get an earful whenever he saw her next. There was one message from Walden, who wanted to know where the nail clippers were because he always let his nails grow really long because he gave no shits until they started breaking off in jagged edges and he kept scratching himself in his sleep.

     “The first show is at eleven-thirty,” said Katniss. “I have to be backstage by at least eleven. Prep should be starting any minute now, though.”

     “Oh,” Peeta said. He figured this meant that he’d have to leave, though he really didn’t want to. He had a number of things to do today, including his shift at the bakery, hanging out with Delly as he’d promised, and texting Walden back about the nail clippers, but he really did not want to. He’d rather stay there, with her. In the silence that followed his oh, the fairgrounds slowly came to life, blooming with activity and preparing for the day ahead. He felt like an intruder, even though nobody spared him a second glance.

     “Come on,” she said, reaching for his hand. “I’ll drive you home.”

     He took her hand and was suddenly awash in the sensation of it—as she led him back to the Circus van, he didn’t pay attention to the route, because he couldn’t stop thinking. Thinking about their palms pressed together, despite the fact that they were both all sweaty, and the way their fingers fit between each other’s. He had held hands with numerous people, family members, his brothers, his parents, even Delly, but there was something different about it this time. It felt so _right_ , more right than anything had ever felt, he thought. Besides kissing her in the bathroom earlier, that is.

     God, he was such a goner.

     About halfway to the car, someone yelled her name. Peeta and Katniss both turned to look, and then Katniss frowned and walked even faster.

      “Catnip, hey,” said the guy, jogging up beside them. He had some nutrition bar in one hand and had a bunch of stubble and messy hair. He wore rolled up jeans and a Batman shirt like one that Cap had, and he looked really familiar to Peeta but he couldn’t figure out from where. “I’ve been looking for you. Can we talk?”

     Did he not see Peeta there, being practically dragged along? Peeta knew he wasn’t really the most eye-catching person ever, but he wasn’t unnoticeable either. He was built like a star quarterback but he did not have the associated grace—instead he walked like he’d only just learned how and slumped his shoulders.

     “No,” said Katniss. “No, Gale, I actually cannot talk right now.”

     “Come on, Catnip,” he said mournfully.

     “We can talk later. Go flirt with Madge or get ready or something,” she replied.

     “I don’t have a thing for Madge,” he protested. Peeta was beginning to recognize him as Katniss’s performance partner, and he felt a pang of jealousy.

     “Oh, you so do. Now shoo,” Katniss said, stopping and locking eyes with this Gale person. Peeta unintentionally squeezed her hand a little harder, and she looked over at him with a smile. “I swear we will have a discussion some time that is not now, so go, young bird. Be free.”

     Peeta smirked at this, and the guy finally seemed to notice him. He eyed him curiously, and then when he noticed the way he and Katniss’s fingers were interlocked, Gale’s eyes took on some sort of wariness. Was he protective, or was he jealous? Peeta couldn’t tell. Anyway, he eventually shrugged and walked off towards the big tent.

     “Should I even ask about the rolled up jeans?” asked Peeta, and Katniss laughed. He was glad to hear her laugh again instead of looking forlorn as she had when Gale was still there. He wondered why his presence upset her, and why he’d wanted to talk, but he didn’t ask.

     “I have no idea,” she said. “He must think it looks fine since no one has told him otherwise.”

     Peeta chuckled and they walked at a leisurely pace through the remainder of the fairgrounds, a comfortable quiet settling between them. It surprised him, how at ease he felt, but it was such a welcome surprise. Being around people was not something that came naturally to Peeta—he did not have charisma or people skills or anything of the sort, he only had his bumbling self and brain full of witticisms and pop culture references. So naturally, he just felt as if existing was easier around some people. Those people were mainly his father, his brothers, and Delly. These were the people he felt most like himself with, the people he could just sit with and do nothing or could have long conversations with that went nowhere in particular.

     Being with Katniss was a bit like that. As worried as he was about her expectations and his tendencies for fucking up, he still felt like spending time with her came easily. Even though they hadn’t spent much time together at all—even including their brief encounters as children—Peeta felt so very close to her. This realization sparked the idea that he absolutely had to get to know her even better, and that he absolutely had to woo her even further.

     They reached the van and climbed in. After they were both buckled up and Katniss had adjusted the mirrors, she pulled out of the grassy makeshift parking lot and drove off of the fairground property.

     As the Circus faded away in the rearview mirror, he blurted, “What’s your favorite color?”

     “Green,” she said without taking her eyes off of the road.

    “Oh, mine is orange,” he said. “Not like, bright orange, but like sunset orange.”

    “I figured,” said Katniss. “What with your shoes and your glasses and your phone case all being orange. Either that or there was a sale on all things orange-colored at the Walmart.”

     She drove in silence the rest of the way. To Peeta’s surprise, it felt like barely any time passed at all between leaving the fairgrounds and pulling up in front of his house, driver’s side against the curb. Katniss leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

     “Call me in a few hours, okay?”

     “Same number?” Peeta asked, and she nodded.

     “Yes, Prim’s phone…I don’t have one,” she explained. “But she will more than likely know where to find me.”

     He nodded, and she nodded again, and then he unbuckled himself and half-fell half-stepped out of the car. Blushing, he rounded the front and started up towards his house with his shoulders hunched, but Katniss rolled down the window and called after him. He turned around.

     “Peeta! One last thing. Come here,” she said, motioning him forward. He took a few steps back in her direction so that he was partly in the grass by the side of the road, but his heels still touched the sidewalk. “Closer.” He took a step closer. “Oh my God, Peeta, that is not closer at all.”

     He stepped up so that he was right up next to the vehicle, his hands on the door. Katniss smirked and reached behind his head to slide her hand through his hair and guide his head down so she could reach his lips. This kiss was longer, more indulgent, and when it was over she gently pushed him back. She grinned, and he grinned back, feeling his cheeks warm and running his hand through his already mussed curls.

     Katniss rolled up the window and drove away, leaving Peeta waving on the curb.

 ****

Delly was there when he arrived at the bakery for his shift. She was sitting in her favorite booth with a book of poetry in her hand and her necklace in her mouth—it was a flower shaped pendant that Bonnie had gotten her for their anniversary last year. Peeta remembered that Delly had felt bad about it at first; that she hadn’t gone out and bought something, but it turned out that Bonnie liked the poem she’d written better. Something from the heart rather than something from the wallet.

     When she looked up and spotted him walking in, she snapped her book shut and got up. Wordlessly, she strode over to him and smacked him on the shoulder with the works of Robert Frost.

     “Ow!” he yelped, though truthfully she hadn’t really hit him that hard. It startled him more than anything.

     “That is what you get for ignoring me. Wait, no, that’s what you get for hanging up on me the way you did,” she said, and then she smacked him again. “ _That’s_ what you get for the radio silence. I was worried you’d had some major meltdown and forgotten how to breathe.”

     “No, I’m fine,” he said, rubbing his shoulder. “Don’t worry. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to work.”

     He started towards the kitchen but Delly grabbed his arm and dragged him toward her table. He resisted minimally, but eventually gave up and slid into the booth because Delly was stubborn and wouldn’t let him go despite how many times he protested.

     “Your father is the most patient man I have ever met,” said Delly, though it wasn’t really true. She knew that Peeta’s father was just the type who bottled everything up until he couldn’t anymore, and that was when he really flew off the handle. That was why the last year or so had been the bane of his parents’ marriage, because Mr. Mellark had had enough. “I’m sure he’ll be fine if you stay and talk with me for like, a couple more minutes.”

       Peeta just sat back and looked at her, waiting for the onslaught of questions.

      “I already explained to him what you were up to, anyway,” she added. He sighed.

      “Did you tell Bonnie too? Or perhaps Panem City Weekly, because I’m sure they’d get a kick out of it,” he said with a sharp edge in his voice. “I can see the headlines already: Youngest Mellark boy’s first date; ends up hiding in bathroom hyperventilating.”

      “You didn’t hyperventilate,” said Delly. “Did you?”

      “No.”

      “Well what happened then? Did you get over yourself and get back out there?” she asked, folding her hands on the table and looking expectant. Peeta rubbed his forehead and shook his head—he wondered how long it would take for her to notice that he was still red-faced from the way Katniss had kissed him, or how elated he was behind his impassive expression.

      “No. I freaked the fuck out actually.”

     She nodded because of course she’d expected that. Peeta sighed.

     “Of course I waited until she checked on me to lose my shit and I told her pretty much everything that was on my mind.”

      “Ohhh shiiitttt,” said Delly, dragging out every letter. “What did she do?”

       Peeta tried not to smile, and instead he looked at the table and scratched his eyebrow like he generally did when he didn’t want to talk about something. Thus giving the impression that the results of his freak-out had been a lot worse than they actually were, instead of feeling like the best thing that had ever happened to him.

      “Peeta, are you sure you’re okay?” Delly asked, reaching forward and laying her hand comfortingly over his. “I mean, I don’t mean to pry. Just. Um.”

       “Well,” Peeta began. “I freaked out and then, once I stopped talking and took a minute to breathe. Well, um, you see…she kind of kissed me.”

      “What.”

      “I said that she kissed me,” he repeated. “Is that so hard to believe?”

     Delly nodded, and Peeta rolled his eyes. Of course she found it hard to believe—everyone would find it hard to believe except Katniss, who was the one who’d done the kissing. People wasn’t widely seen as somebody who kissed on first dates—or whatever today had been—not even by his family. He wasn’t really seen as somebody who went on dates in the first place. Frankly, he was tired of it. He was getting the girl and he was thrilled about it, but no one had ever believed he could do it.

      “I’m not so much of a loser that I can’t have anything good come my way, Delly,” he said. “I’m not kidding and I’m not lying to you like some lame kid who wanted something to happen that didn’t. So, if you’ll excuse me, I am late for work.”

     Peeta hauled himself out of the booth and headed for the stainless steel kitchen doors, but Delly latched onto his arm to stop him. He looked down at her, seeing her genuinely apologetic expression, the softness to her that didn’t really come out very often. Delly was all sharp retorts and ridiculous puns most of the time, but she usually knew when to draw the line. This time, she had genuinely been caught off guard, and Peeta had overreacted.

      Once he realized this, he settled down in the booth beside her and tapped the table impatiently.

        “Of course you’re not a loser,” she said, squeezing his arm. “You’re my best friend in the world, and I could never be friends with a real loser. Being a tad… _unlucky_ is different—losers don’t even try.”

        “Yeah…”

      “Peeta, I believe you. It just—you shocked me, is all,” she smiled, “I mean, you were kind of abrupt, sounding all bummed out when suddenly you announce that your lip-virginity flew out the window with the Mockingjay.”

      Peeta laughed, shrugged, and slid back out of the booth.

      “I’m sorry I freaked out,” he said. “My ego is terribly fragile.”

     “I’m sorry I broke it,” Delly replied. “Now get to work. Bills don’t pay themselves, Peeta, and if you plan to take that girl out on a proper date you better keep the cash coming in.”

     The fact that he didn’t have to pay bills wasn’t relevant enough to be mentioned, he thought, and he took Delly’s mention of this phenomenon called a “proper date” as a vote of confidence. Encouragement wound up in a witty comment, completely and utterly suitable coming from Delly.

 ****

The show ran smoothly, even the act with Gale. She shot arrows, she danced, and afterwards she rode in the chariot with him and waved to the crowd happily. When they were backstage, he helped her down from the chariot and smiled.

     “Can I walk you to your dressing room?” he asked, and Katniss nodded. He’d wanted to talk, and she figured that this was his time and place. Better than when she was holding Peeta’s hand, about to drive him home. Better than the moments leading up to the performance, when they were supposed to be waiting quietly for their act.

     She walked with her hands behind her back and he scratched his stubbly face. Katniss remembered when he first started getting facial hair and how he’d always proudly stroke it, but now he did it because he was trying to string words together in his head so they made sense, so he could effectively communicate whatever he wanted to say.

     “So, um, I wanted to apologize,” Gale began, and she sidestepped, pausing to give him a look of puzzlement.

     “What for? Did you pillage my tampon stash again?” she asked dryly. “Dude, you really have to start buying your own. That shit is not cheap.”

     “Catnip, I don’t have a vagina to bleed from.”

     “Joke,” she told him. “I was joking. You really shouldn’t take everything I say so seriously. What are you feeling that you need to apologize for?”

      “You’re the one who had a meltdown yesterday,” he replied. “And it was about something I had said, so I wanted to tell you I was sorry I upset you.”

     “Oh.” Katniss shrugged, and she felt herself closing off to him again. Everything he had said about being sick of the Circus and wanting to get away was spinning through her head again, weighing down her previously high spirits. People had left the Circus before of their own volition, to start a family or a career, but none of them had been so close to Katniss. Gale was practically her brother, and if he was gone, a part of the family would be missing. Would this be considered a manifestation of abandonment issues, or just her fear of change?

     “Catnip,” he sighed. “I really am sorry, but...I wasn’t born into this. I just came into it because I had nowhere else to go. You know that. I’m not cut out for it like you are.”

     “The Circus is your family, Gale,” she said sharply. Katniss was not one who spoke softly, or in a quivering voice. Even when she felt as if she would cry, her voice had an edge to it, her volume changed beyond her control. “You belong here.”

     “I can’t do anything but fire a flaming arrow, Katniss,” he said. “I spend more time behind the scenes than any of the performers, and do you know where I prefer to be? The control booth. I am good with computers. I am good with logic. I want to go out into the world and do something I love, something that I can have a future doing. I can’t find that here.”

     Katniss gritted her teeth and said nothing, instead lifting her skirt and speeding up her walking. She couldn’t run in these shoes or this dress, but she would’ve if she could have. That was the way she dealt with her problems—she yelled, she ran away, and then later, she danced. It gave the illusion that the problem could just go away for a while, and she could come back when she was ready to confront it. Of course it wasn’t that easy, but she could still pretend.

     “Katniss, come on,” he called after her, but she was already slipping into her changing room and drawing the curtains shut, clipping them together with the chip clip she’d found in her pantry a few weeks ago. She put on her music, a playlist of classical compositions, and turned the volume up enough so it drowned out Gale’s attempts at reclaiming her attention. She was done with him for now. Eventually he would go away.

     She changed and waited until he did. Then she ventured out into the Circus again, visiting Prim in the animal tent and borrowing the phone to call her mother, who sounded better than she had when they talked last night.

     It was all very formal and obligatory when Katniss spoke with her mother. She asked how she was, and when her mom asked the same, she always said she was fine or good or even fantastic. She asked how work was, and Mom would sometimes tell a story about one of the kids she treated that day. She had been an ER nurse once upon a time, and that was how she’d met Katniss and Prim’s father, a guy from the Circus with a broken leg because he’d fallen off a horse. She couldn’t do it anymore because it reminded her of him; she’d met him in an emergency room and lost him in an emergency room, and that was too much for her. When she stopped performing, she went into pediatrics and let the girls travel with the Circus.

     Sometimes, Katniss would lie awake at night and wonder if her mother had deliberately sent her away. If she was like the ER and the Circus and the wedding quilt that she kept in storage, and she reminded Mom too much of her dead husband. She wondered if when she protested letting Prim stay with _Le Cirque du Feu_  as well, it was for more reason than just how much younger she was. Prim didn’t look like Dad, and she didn’t have his sense of humor or his musical inclination. Just his love of animals, his nurturing tendencies, and those were things that could’ve come from Mom too.

     But Katniss loved her mother, so she listened to her stories and small-talked with her and hung up with a pleasant “I love you, bye.”

      “You always act like calling Mom is such a chore,” said Prim when Katniss came back, handing her the phone. “Don’t you like talking to her?”

     “Sometimes,” she said, adjusting her baseball cap and turning to walk out of the animal tent. But then she remembered something and stopped, turning back to Prim. “By the way, I’m expecting a call on that. Just come find me in the RV when he asks for me, okay?”

     Prim nodded and put the phone in a hidden pocket in her dress, and Katniss walked away toward the RV that they shared. She was in need of a bubble bath to wash away her makeup as well as the nagging stress of Gale’s desire to leave and her mother’s desire to forget.

 ****

Katniss had been out of the bath for all of five minutes when there was a knocking on the door. Prim was probably getting ready for her side act right about now, so Katniss actually had to put on pants before she could allow whoever it was to enter.

     Once she’d pulled on her jeans, she called, “Come in!”  

     The door creaked open, rocking the RV slightly, and Finnick hopped up the steps holding Prim’s phone in its kitten-patterned phone case to his shoulder. He looked around the interior that he’d seen about five hundred times like he was seeing it for the first time.

      “Why is it that you get a nicer house than me?” he asked, pretending to pout. He had a little trailer attached to a pickup truck that was parked just a few yards away from the RV, and he was one of many. About half of the Circus personnel had mobile home type things, and about half shared rooms at hotels and bed and breakfasts.

       “Because I am so much greater than you, worm,” she replied. “Now, hand over the phone and go back to practicing your magic tricks.”

     Finnick crinkled his nose and lifted the phone, “Could you hold a little longer, please? Thanks.” He put it back to his shoulder, as if that could stop Peeta from hearing their conversation, and held up a finger. “Okay, point A, my magic is the realest of real and you know it. Point B, there’s a phone call for you. I’ve had him on hold the whole walk over.”

     “Yes, thank you, Finn,” she said, holding out her hand and shaking her fingers in a ‘give it to me now’ gesture. He didn’t give it to her. “Come on, man. What more do you need to say?”

       “Who is it?”

       “Peeta, probably. Or the escort service I work for on the side.”

     “Peeta, the mystery boy with his number on your arm yesterday? That Peeta?” asked Finnick. Katniss nodded and shook her hand more insistently. He still kept his grip on the phone. “So you did call him? Well, hot damn. I guess Annie owes me fifteen bucks or something else tonight, if you catch my drift.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

      “Oh my God, too much information. Give it to me now or I will smack that grin right off your face,” she snapped. He grinned wider and tossed it through the air, and she was lucky to catch it. Then, he turned and headed back out of the RV, shutting the door behind him. She raised the phone to her ear, cautiously saying, “Hello?”

     Peeta was laughing, really hard apparently, because it took him a moment to calm down.

     “Hey,” he said finally.

     “Sorry about that. Finnick is…um, I cannot even accurately describe Finnick’s personality,” said Katniss, sitting down at the table near the door. “He’s annoying at times, but also really great when you get to know him.”

     “Like me?”

      “No, you’re not annoying,” she said. Why did he think he was annoying? Why did he think he was anything less than a really cute boy with a really cute personality? He dripped with wittiness and smarts, and could probably tell her what she was doing wrong when it came to the algebra she was learning. As far as she could tell, Peeta was pretty great, but he didn’t seem to notice how great he was at all. “You’re a sweetheart.”

     “Shh, no, I am a super manly man what are you talking about,” he said, deepening his voice. “I like to lift weights and show my muscles to luscious blond cheerleaders. I like to throw a ball that isn’t even spherical and get touchdowns.”

     “Isn’t Cap a football player?” she asked. Peeta laughed.

     “Yes, and he’s eavesdropping from just outside the kitchen.” He laughed, and a timer went off on his end. “Agh. Sorry, bread’s done.”

     “Peeta, you shouldn’t be on the phone while you’re working,” she said. The last thing she wanted was for him to be scolded, or for him to burn himself or something. That would put quite a damper on their unfinalized plans.

      “Oh, I get off in like, two seconds,” he said. “Like, literally as soon as this batch of bread is out of the oven. Cap, hey, I’m on the phone. Can you get the bread out of the oven?”

     Cap said something that she just barely heard. “Tell him hello for me.”

     “Katniss says hello…CAP WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP,” he yelled suddenly, and Katniss had to hold the phone away from her ear. She heard him set down his phone and yell again, but this time it was more of a wordless, frustrated yell. “You are so immature. How are you going to explain this to Dad?”

     “Easy. I’m going to tell him that I started pelting you with bread pieces because you were on the phone,” said Cap mockingly, “when you were meant to be working.”

     “My shift is over!” growled Peeta, and he said something else too, but quietly. It sounded like admonishment for embarrassing him, and then concern for his possibly burned fingers that Cap just brushed off and said he’d run them under cold water. Then Peeta was back, holding the phone to his ear and saying, “Sorry about that. Cap is, well, I cannot accurately describe Cap’s personality.”

      She laughed. “I can. He’s your big brother and he thinks it’s his job to give you a hard time. My guess is that he’s of the mindset that the only person who gets to mess with you is him, and anyone else should be punched.”

     “Your guess is correct. So, when did you want that burger?”

They settled on a time after the last show of the day, which was set to end just after seven. Peeta mentioned that he’d asked to borrow the family car, and that he’d been planning to pick her up and take her home since she’d been the transportation that morning. Katniss agreed, and told him she could get him backstage if he wanted, as long as he stayed at the bakery for a while to give whatever messenger time to get a pass to him. He seemed good with that.

     “So, meet me backstage right around the end of the show. We can walk the arena, if you want…” she said.

      “Yes, yes, will do. Okay. I’ll see you then?”

     “Yes, yes you will,” said Katniss. She hung up on him, still smiling, and tucked the phone in her pocket. She left the RV and headed out to the fairgrounds, flagging down the nearest stage hand and telling him where to go and who to look for. He told her that he was more than happy to help, and then he turned and walked away towards the line of Circus vans, twirling a set of keys around his fingers and carrying a spare backstage pass in the other. He whistled as he went, and Katniss watched until she couldn’t see him anymore.


	7. Goodbye, June

**Chapter Six: Goodbye, June**

 

 Peeta paid student admission to get into the Circus before the show started, and then he milled about among the vendor's booths and games for a while. Sweat dampened the back of his neck and hair, and his hands were terribly clammy. God, what was it that made him nervous? Was it the fact that he, of all people, had a backstage pass dangling around his neck? He could just go back there and stand behind the scenes of the Circus without trouble, maybe even blend in with the non-performers that were surely around.

      Or did his nerves come from something simpler: the fact that he was about to take Katniss Everdeen, literally the girl of his dreams, out for a burger at some stupid diner up the road? He felt like she deserved more. Why hadn't he put on a suit, or gotten her flowers? On one hand he felt like not doing it made him a cheapskate, and on the other he felt as if showing up like that would've done nothing but make her laugh at the terrible corniness of it.

     When they announced that the show was starting in a matter of minutes, Peeta hurried for the tent entrance and slipped into a seat in a back row, glad that he had his glasses on and could see from there. When the lights dimmed, he watched with the same enthrallment he had from the start, even though he'd seen this performance live twice already and made out with the star of the show.

     Okay, so it wasn't making out exactly, but what happened was within that realm.

     When Katniss came out with Gale and they did the act, it went smoothly until Gale went to leave and he brushed up against her, which seemed to earn him a deadly glare. He guessed their "talk" hadn't gone so well then. He also figured that it was about time he got out of the tent so he could meet Katniss backstage on time. Also, he'd guzzled a large coke throughout the performance and really had to pee.

     So Peeta muttered polite apologies and the occasional “excuse me” as he worked his way past the other occupants of his row, who didn't seem thrilled that he was blocking their view during the best part, but it couldn't be helped. He got the ushers to let him out of the tent and tossed out his cup before checking his watch and his phone for the time. He always checked both out of habit, and he was just noticing that it was weird now. He contemplated it as he bolted across the fairgrounds towards the bathroom, and stopped when he had to put extra thought into which bathroom he was entering. Double checking the sign as well as remembering which was left and which was right.

     He ran in, did what he had to do, washed his hands and fixed his hair, and then ran out. It'd taken him about over a minute to do all that, he figured as he hurried back to the tent. The applause became thunderous as he neared it, but this time he asked the ushers where the back entrance was instead of going back in through the front.

     "You have a pass?" asked one. He nodded and fumbled with the lanyard and card, emblazoned with the fiery mockingjay symbol. The guy nodded in return and led him around to the part of the tent that jutted out, molding to the shape of the arena but throwing off the actual oval shape completely. "Here it is."

     "Thanks," Peeta said, and the guy patted his shoulder.

     "You know you'll get pummeled if you hurt that girl, right?" asked the guy, and Peeta turned red. It must've been that everyone had heard about his date with Katniss. He gulped, looking terrified, despite the fact that he doubted he was even close to capable of hurting her.

     "She'd beat me up first," he managed to say awkwardly, running one hand through his hair.

     The usher laughed. "That's what I meant." And then he walked back to his post. Trying not to overthink it, Peeta ducked through the tent flap entrance and walked into the backstage area as confidently as he could. It was bustling as the last of the chariots rode out into the arena, stage hands waiting around, talking into headsets. A girl in a black skirt somehow managed to carry two birdcages past him, each holding two mockingjays. Katniss's mockingjays.

     Peeta tried to hang back and avoid being noticed, but he still felt eyes on him. He had to look down to make sure he'd redone his fly properly, that his clothes weren't ripped anywhere, and that he wasn't so obviously favoring his good leg because for some reason he was always worried that people would notice that.

    Then the chariots were roaring back in, all four of them. He watched the acrobats get off and head in one direction, and then Finnick the Spectacular leaping dramatically from his own chariot and waltzing after them. The equestrian girls were in the next one, and then his eyes were drawn completely to the final chariot. Katniss was wearing her finale costume, the one that looked like mockingjay feathers, and she was hurriedly removing herself from the carriage as if it was full of hot coals pressing against her feet.

     "Wow, Catnip, I said I was sorry," Gale shouted over the sounds of the crowd outside and the stagehands working backstage.

     Katniss flipped him off and continued walking away, right towards Peeta. She hadn't seen him yet, he was sure of it, but she was walking right in his direction anyway.

     "Hey, Katniss," he said when she got nearer, and he couldn't contain the feeling he got when her face suddenly brightened. "Is everything—”

     He was cut off midsentence when she launched herself into his arms, enveloping him in a tight hug.

     "—okay?" he finished as she squeezed his middle. She nodded against him and pulled back.

     "Everything is fine. I'm going to change real quick, and then we can go, okay?" she said, grasping his hands. He nodded slowly, and then she took his hand and pulled him along the backstage part of the tent, stopping at a curtained dressing room of sorts that he’d passed without realizing it belonged to Katniss, despite the little sign that was clipped to the curtain. It was made from opaque separators and curtains hung up on a rod between them, which was somehow attached to the tent’s sloping ceiling.

     “What about walking the arena?” he asked as she slipped through the curtains and closed them behind her. He could hear her unzipping the back of the dress and blushed, because just that sound put all sorts of images in his teenaged mind.

     “Oh, I kind of thought we’d just go,” she replied after a moment’s hesitation. There was something in her voice that didn’t sound quite right, whether it be a note of whatever or a barely detected tremble. Peeta stood there and listened to her rustling around, changing from her costume into whatever else she had in there, but he was less focused on that and more focused on the fact that she was clearly upset about something. He didn’t know what, but he was determined to try and make it better.

    Once it seemed like it’d been long enough for her to be dressed, he asked, “Are you decent?”

     “Yes…”

     He slipped into her dressing room, rather calmly despite the red coloring his cheeks and the fact that it was _her dressing room_. Katniss looked at him through a mirror that stood at one end, braiding her hair. She was wearing a yellow sundress that came to her knees and had a white sash and bow around the middle. Her shoes were white sandals, and she had a package of makeup removing wipes sitting on the chair. Her costume was hung up in one corner, the hem of it brushing against the flooring of the tent.

     "Are you sure you're all right?" he asked gently. She finished off the braid with a hair tie and turned around to look right at him.

     "Yes. Could you hand me those?" She pointed to the wipes. Peeta picked them up and put the package in her hand, and then sat in their place. He watched, hypnotized as she wiped away her smoky, glittery performance makeup.

     "Do you need me to beat him up for you?" asked Peeta. He was joking, for the most part, since he probably couldn't beat up anyone he didn't have a size advantage over. Gale was lighter than him, probably, and not as bulky, but he was a few inches taller. But since she'd offered to beat someone up for him in the past, it only made sense that he did the same for her.

     She smiled and laughed, which was exactly what he'd been hoping for.

     "No, it's fine," she said. "Maybe later I'll beat him up myself."

     There was a piece of stray hair in her face, falling near her eyes, and Peeta itched to get up and brush it away. But instead he sat there, transfixed, as she bent close to the mirror and wiped away the last of what she needed to be rid of. He watched as she sat on the ground, dug through a bag, and started to reapply.

     He remembered a conversation with Delly about girls and makeup. He hadn't understood why they were so into it, since they were beautiful no matter what, and she'd shrugged. She told him that different girls did it for different reasons, some to impress, some because they didn't feel pretty without it. She was one that did it not for anyone else, but because she wanted to. Katniss was a lot like Delly and probably put on this makeup exclusively because she wanted to.

     Peeta didn't care whether she wore makeup. He just hoped she felt as beautiful as he thought she was.

     As she finished, he fidgeted until she turned to look at him. "You look great," he said, his voice faltering a little on the last word. Different parts of his body were continuously betraying him, for God's sake, what would be next?

     He grimaced inwardly when it occurred to him that in the ways of embarrassing bodily betrayals, he really hadn't seen the worst.

     "Thanks, Peeta," she said, grabbing a little purse from behind her makeup bag and standing up. "Ready to go?"

     He nodded and wordlessly followed her out of the dressing room and out of the tent. She held his hand as they walked through the fairgrounds, toward the exit, where his father's car was parked between a Jeep and an Impala that he envied deeply.

     "Holy shit, an Impala," said Katniss. "Like Supernatural. I swear this is the only type of car I can identify on sight."

     And just like that, he was definitely in love.

 ****

The diner was brightly lit and Katniss thought it was very cheerful. An old-fashioned jukebox sat at one end and underfoot, there was classic black and white tile that she decided completed the look of the restaurant. Peeta led her to what he said was his favorite booth, situated right in the middle of the diner.

     "The best seat in the house for people-watching," he said as she slid into one side and he sat down in another.

     "That's not creepy," she replied. And then she winced, because she had sounded sarcastic, but she hadn't meant it that way. As someone who regularly walked around crowded places trying to remain unnoticed, people-watching was something she practiced. "I mean, I do it all the time at the Circus."

     She sat up straighter and clasped her hands together. The same waitress she and the others had had before swung by, her hair pulled back in a ponytail and her name tag pinned to a yellow shirt instead of a purple one.

     "Peeta, hi," she said, and she seemed a little surprised. Especially when she looked over and saw Katniss sitting there. "What brings you here tonight?"

     "Date," he said, blushing brightly. He gestured to Katniss with a shy smile on his face, and the waitress called Myra grinned.

     "That's really great!" Myra replied excitedly. And then she became just a tad more businesslike, asking them for their drink order and receiving it: a root beer and a Sprite. "Thanks, guys. I'll bring that right out."

     With that, she walked away to tend to other customers.

     "Small town?" Katniss asked, hoping that was all it was. The last thing she needed was to have walked into an establishment that employed someone Peeta had had a fling with or something.

     "She's my brother's on-off girlfriend," said Peeta. Katniss let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. "Myra's basically his best friend turned lover, the best match in the world for him. Walden, however, repeatedly decides that he's not good enough for her or some shit and they're off again. After a while he goes back to her, finding she never stopped loving him, and they're on. It's kind of silly, but we all know they're going to get married someday." 

     "How nice," said Katniss genuinely, fiddling with the strap of her purse. She cursed herself for worrying, for being nervous, but she really couldn't help it. It was her first official date after all, and it was with Peeta, this cute kid she'd met so many years ago but didn't really know until now. And she still didn't know him. She knew his favorite color and his brothers' names and where the scars on his leg had come from, but she didn't know everything.

     She wanted to know everything.

     Myra brought their drinks a moment later. They each ordered a burger and sent her off again, and Katniss started her interrogation. She asked him his favorite food, movie, show, book, and just about anything she could think of. She asked him what he'd do with a million dollars, a question to which a lot of people would say "charity". Peeta said he'd donate some, but he'd use some for school and some for supporting himself after, when he was whatever he ended up being. He didn't know what that would be, though he kind of hoped he could make it as an artist.

     She asked him about his childhood, learning about his penchant for curling up by himself and reading. She heard about his mother and how she was always a ticking time bomb, and she learned about the way his brothers always looked out for him. In turn, he learned about her family issues. Her mom's behavior after her dad died; how she and Prim lived with the Circus instead of with their mother. Details, details, details about one another that couldn't be overlooked.

     They wouldn't have forever to get to know each other, after all, so they just spilled out everything they could at that booth in the diner.

     After dinner, Peeta paid, and when they left the diner he took her hand instead of her taking his. For some reason, she got a lot of satisfaction from this very simple fact, as if it meant she had broken past his shyness and reached someone willing to initiate hand holding. Which admittedly wasn't a big deal but whatever.

     The sun was still out, but just barely, and the sky was turning pink and orange in its wake. They reached the car and Katniss went to her side and Peeta went to his, but neither of them got in right away. Peeta stood there, the door open, looking almost like he was suspended in time as he appreciated the sight before him. Katniss stood there and watched him watch the sky. There was such a softness to Peeta, she thought. He was the type of person who took his time with life and stopped to watch the sunset. Things mattered to him. She mattered to him.

     Katniss knew that she mattered to a lot of people, but not all of them were important to her. And lately, only the most important person to her had actually shown real evidence. Of course, Prim was all that mattered...but it could never hurt to have more affectionate people in her life, even if it was only for a little while.

     "Goodbye, June," said Peeta softly, derailing her somewhat negative train of thought. He turned around and grinned at her. "Very soon it will be July, hot days and nights punctuated with intense patriotism in the form of flags and streamers and fireworks."

     "Do you do this every month?" she asked. "Oh, here comes December, the month of ice and commercialized holiday cheer. Candy canes and that weird fluffy Santa Lingerie found in basically every store. JOY TO THE WORLD BITCHES."

     "Um. Not really," he said, his smile shrinking but still glowing.

     "Well, without that announcement I would've forgotten today's date, so thank you," said Katniss. She climbed into the car and buckled herself in, and then looked expectantly at Peeta. He followed suit and soon, they were driving back towards the fairgrounds. She was kind of sad to see the date end, and she thought that maybe she could make him walk her to the RV in order to drag it out. Or perhaps challenge him to another game, with the stakes being another excuse to see him again. She quite liked that idea.

     So when he parked in the grassy lot and they walked together to the gate, Katniss smiled at the woman in the ticket booth whose name she could never remember. She motioned for Peeta to wait, and then walked over.

     "Hey," she said. "Can you make sure that this guy can always get in free of charge? He's with me."

     The woman nodded and went back to counting the money in the lock box. When she fell back beside him, Peeta gaped at her as if she'd just suggested they hire a troupe of elephants for his next birthday party.

     "What?" she asked.

     "Me? Free admission?" he croaked. She hadn't realized he would be so surprised that she would ask for such a thing.

     "Always," she replied. "You're with me."

     "Always," he repeated carefully, almost to himself. His eyes took on a faraway look, even as she grasped his hand and began walking through the fairgrounds with him.

     "I was thinking," she began when he seemed back to himself. "If you don't mind, we could finish off this date with another little challenge, hmm? What do you think?"

     "What, so you can win another wager and get me to take you out again?" he asked. "Or vice versa? You know, Katniss, it would be easier just to ask. Now that, um, we...have...there's something...um..."

     "Now that we're actually together, you mean?" said Katniss, smirking. His cheeks blossomed with red.

     "Yes, yes," he said hurriedly, but he grinned along with his words. He seemed pretty damn thrilled about it. "That is what I meant to say, thank you."

     "Anytime, baker's boy."

     Katniss decided that maybe she didn't need a game to justify her wanting to spend more time with him. She decided that perhaps, walking her to the RV would be all he had to do tonight before she let him go.

     She led the way, of course, as they dodged the last of the circusgoers. The crowd had thinned considerably, since it was all the children's bedtimes and the sun was creeping down towards the horizon. They didn't really talk on their way there, but Katniss still felt interrupted when they finally reached her house-on-wheels. She could just barely hear Prim moving around inside, running water to wash dishes or brush her teeth.

     "I do want to see you again," she said, standing at the door. Peeta still had her hand, and he moved his thumb across her skin in a way that almost tickled, but was more pleasant than not.

     "Me too. I mean," he tripped over his words, as he tended to do. She didn't mind. "I mean that I would too like to see you again. I mean. I would also...yeah."

     "I'll call you," she said, squeezing his hand and then loosening her grip. When she did this, Peeta must've gotten the impression that this was it, that he was now expected to let go and start moving away.

     That was not what she wanted. She wanted him to hold on tighter, and she wanted him to pull her closer. God, she had to do everything herself with this boy. Before he could pull away completely and open his mouth to go through a goodnight/goodbye routine, Katniss jerked him forward by the wrist. He stumbled and practically collided with her, but she had timed it right.

     She kissed him with one hand poised at the side of his face, the other with its fingers threaded through his at their sides. She kissed him continuously, but not hungrily, and he kissed her back with tenderness that mirrored her own. When she finally stopped it, Katniss was slightly breathless but pleasantly so, because it had been one of the greatest things she'd ever ventured to do.

     "That is also something I would _definitely_ like to do again," she said. She planted one more kiss on his cheek before dropping his hand and reaching for the door, which was probably unlocked since Prim was still awake. She was so trusting, never really caring if the door was secured or not. "Goodnight, Peeta."

     "Goodnight, Katniss."

     She slipped inside without another word. Prim hollered a hello from the bathroom, but she didn't reply. Instead she leaned over their little kitchen table and watched out the window as Peeta turned and walked away.

     How interesting, she thought, that of all the people she had met during her years with the Circus (basically her entire life), this was the one she was drawn to. She had met plenty of boys, none of which she had ever had time for: the Circus would be gone in a matter of days, so why bother? But somehow Peeta was different. Somehow, he'd captivated her enough...

     All she really knew was that boys who moved like panthers or spouted charm every time they breathed didn't do to her what Peeta did—they didn't make her palms sweat, and they didn't make her smile almost uncontrollably. Of all the boys who'd ever expressed interest, Peeta was the only one that made her heart beat just a little faster.


	8. Pancake Lifestyle

**Chapter Seven: Pancake Lifestyle**

 

The next morning, Peeta woke to the sound of someone walking across his carpet. The footsteps were softer than his father’s or Cap’s, but the fact that he could hear them indicated that it couldn’t be Walden—Walden moved soundlessly, like a cat, or a shadow, or maybe a shadowcat if that was a thing. So he narrowed it down to Delly, and he was even more sure when she pulled open the curtains to let in the summer sunlight and mimicked the sound of a rooster’s crow.

     “Get up. It’s Pancake Tuesday,” she said, climbing up onto his bed and nearly stepping on his leg. But she was careful not to, as always. He groaned and buried his face in his pillow. “You big baby! It’s just the sun.”

      “It’s too bright,” he said.

     “I’m a lot brighter,” said Delly. “And hotter.”

      “Haha,” he said, rolling over and peering up at her through half-closed eyes.  She stood over him with the sunlight catching the gold strands in her hair, wearing white cotton and looking an awful lot like an angel, if it weren’t for her devilish grin. “You wish.”

     “Oh, yes,” Delly laughed brightly, “I nearly forgot that your girlfriend sets herself on fire on a daily basis. How was your date last night? Tell me over pancakes.”

     She jumped off his bed and ran out of the room, content that she had woken him and managed to bring up the whole Girl on Fire thing in one brief conversation. Peeta hauled himself into a sitting position and spastically kicked off his tangled sheets. He was still wearing his jeans from yesterday, which were still dusted in flour and sporting a ketchup stain on his right thigh. He’d taken off his shoes and glasses when he’d gone to bed the night before, but he hadn’t had the presence of mind to do anything else. His teeth felt grainy and plaquey from lack of brushing and he was sure his retainer could use cleaning. He stuck his nose into the collar of his shirt to figure out how he smelled, and then recoiled—so there was definitely a shower to be taken. There was also another thing to be dealt with, something embarrassing that he was glad Delly hadn’t seen, though she wouldn’t have said anything if she had. 

     He got out of bed and grabbed some clothes for the day, and he made sure the hall was empty before he quickly made his way to the bathroom just across from his room. Peeta was notorious for taking the longest showers in the house since Mom left, even though they were still only ten minutes or so. His brothers liked to tease him about what he was probably doing in there, and he always turned bright red, especially when they were right.

     When he was out of the shower, he put on the shirt and shorts he’d grabbed from his drawers and toweled off his hair. He realized belatedly that it was his black Circus t-shirt, the one he’d purchased online just last year, and that his khaki shorts were worn at the bottoms. Ugh. Whatever. He hobbled out of the bathroom with clean clothes, a clean body, a clean retainer, and a pair of smudgy glasses dangling from his hand. He wiped them off with his shirt on his way down the stairs.

     He missed a step near the bottom and ended up on his ass. He could hear their good-natured laughter from the kitchen as he picked himself up, put the glasses on, and limped in. His leg felt a little achey this morning, but it wasn’t as bad as it could be.

     “Good morning, brother,” said Cap from his chair at the head of the table. He rocked in it while Dad’s back was turned, the front legs off the ground and the back ones teetering. Walden had buried his head in the crook of his elbow and was snoring lightly, and Delly was eating the first stack of chocolate pancakes. Because Delly always got the first pancakes on Tuesday mornings, and the first pieces of French toast on Fridays. It was a running joke that Delly was the favorite child, which Peeta didn’t mind, because she might as well have been his sister anyway.

     “Morning,” said Peeta, settling next to his friend. She grinned at him, showing off the chocolate that was stuck to her teeth.

     “Your phone,” she said, pointing to where it sat on the table. “It was on your bedroom floor and would’ve gotten kicked under the bed again if I hadn’t grabbed it.”

     “Thanks,” he said, and picked it up to check his messages. There was an email telling him about a new Tumblr follower, which he showed to Delly, who congratulated him with a thumbs up as she chewed. His dad slid a plate of pancakes in front of him as he found a voicemail from Prim’s phone and lifted it to his ear.

     “Hi. Um. Katniss here,” her voice sounded in his ear. “I don’t have any shows until this afternoon, so I thought we could hang out.  Um. Call me when you wake up or whatever.” And then she’d disconnected. He got up and wandered into the living room to call her back right away. He didn’t care if his pancakes went and got cold.

     Prim picked up on the second ring, but as soon as he’d said “Hello…” she transferred it to her sister.

     “Hi,” said Katniss. He thought he could hear a smile in her voice, and that made him smile. “Did you just get up?”

     “No, yes, kind of,” he said. “I’m having breakfast with my family.”

     “Oh, cool,” she replied. “I’m making instant oatmeal for Prim. She’s always afraid she’ll do it wrong and it will explode in the microwave.”

     He chuckled. “That has happened to me before. Which hardly means anything, because I have the worst luck ever.”

     “How could you have the worst luck? Let’s remember who you’re dating,” she said with a teasing tone. “I’m quite a catch, you have to admit.”

     “I have no trouble admitting that. You’re everything I could hope for,” he said, and then he scolded himself for being so forward again. He was always slipping up and saying too much, and he hated that. “I mean. Um. Have you had breakfast?”

     “Nah. I’m usually not much of a breakfast person. Unless it’s pancakes or something good like that,” she sighed. “But unless we go out with the other performers or something, it’s fruit or granola bars or some shit.”

     “We’re having pancakes,” he blurted. “We always have pancakes on Tuesdays.”

     “Oh. That’s funny,” she said. That smile was still in her voice. He heard the tone of a microwave in the background. “Prim, get your goopy stuff!” she shouted in his ear. He winced. “Sorry.”

     “It’s fine. I can ask my dad if you can, um, come over. For pancakes. I mean he’s really great about people coming over,” he said. “Loves to show off his cooking skills and meet our friends and girlfriends and um shit I didn’t mean to imply that you’re my girlfriend I don’t know if we’re there yet oh my God I just meant that my brothers…”

     “Shh. Peeta. Yes, girlfriend works,” she said, and he felt elation wash over him. It was a wave so delightfully loud that he almost didn’t hear the next thing she said, which was, “I would love to come over for pancakes, if your family doesn’t mind.”

     He was glad his mom was gone. She would’ve put up a fight, asking him who the girl was, why she should come for their family breakfast. She had been used to Delly, since she was Peeta’s oldest friend, but they still rubbed each other the wrong way and it was so much more awkward when the two of them were in the same room. But Delly could show up whenever she wanted now, and his dad could gladly accept that Peeta had just invited someone else to join them too.

      Peeta gave Cap his pancakes so he would stop asking questions and so he wouldn’t have to eat cold ones, and then he went back into the living room to watch out the front window for Katniss’s Circus van. It pulled up in front of the house but didn’t park, and he saw that it wasn’t her in the driver’s seat but Finnick the Spectacular. Another girl sat in the passenger seat as Katniss climbed out of the back. Before they drove away, Finnick shouted something after her and she casually stuck up her middle finger for him to see without even bothering to look back.

     She was wearing a pair of jeans with patches sewn on, probably a favorite pair if it’d been repaired so many times. Her sleeveless top was green to match her shoes and it was frilly and flowy like the one she had on yesterday morning. Her hair was braided, a signature style apparently, and Peeta couldn’t stop himself from sighing audibly at how _fucking gorgeous_ she was. He jumped to open the door for her as soon as she reached the porch, grinning uncontrollably.

     “Hey,” she said breezily, and she stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek as she moved past to get inside. He shut the door behind her.

     “Hi, hey, good morning,” he said, and then winced at his excessiveness. One greeting would’ve sufficed, but he’d spouted three. He was glad when she only smiled and patted his arm, waiting for him to lead her into the kitchen to meet everyone.

     “Walden, wake up,” Cap was half-shouting, probably kicking him under the table. Delly had eaten all her pancakes and was probably waiting for seconds. Walden was stirring, and his hand moved to make contact with the plate of two pancakes that their father had probably just put in front of him a moment ago. Dad turned the instant they walked in, grinning and wielding his spatula like a king’s scepter.

     “Hello,” he said. “You must be Katniss.”

     “Yes, I am the Katniss,” she said, and then her smile faltered for just a second. Delly looked up and started examining her, Cap stopped rocking in his chair and smirked, and Walden spared her only a glance before he picked up his fork and started to eat. “Um. Hi.”

     She sounded considerably less confident now that she was being stared at by most of his family and had accidentally called herself _“the Katniss”_ instead of just Katniss. Peeta figured it would be helpful if he introduced her to everyone properly, so he put his hand on her back briefly and comfortingly and started with his father.

     “That one at the stove with the spatula is my Dad,” he announced, and then moved on. He peeled away from her and wedged himself between Dad and Walden, placing his hands on his brother’s shoulders. “This sleepy one is my oldest brother, Walden. Walden, say hello.” Walden did not say hello. Peeta nudged the back of his head so that he nearly tipped forward into his pancakes. “You have met Capulet, the football star, the middle child, by no means the most attractive of us. That’s obviously me.”

    “Hey!” Cap protested, but Peeta only patted his head. He was having fun with this, and Katniss was looking vibrant again, holding back her laughter. The whole reason he was doing it like this was to make her feel better, and it was working.

      “Ooooh, I’m next,” said Delly. “Can I be the mom?”

     “No,” said Peeta. “You’re the baby. This is Delly, my bestest and loyalest friend since forever. She’s pretending she’s our sister today. Aren’t you, Delly?”

     “If it means I get more pancakes, then yes.”

     “As long as they’re not the pancakes meant for me,” said Katniss. Peeta hurried to pull out the chair next to his, motioning for her to sit down. She happily obliged and he had the impulse to kiss the top of her head once she had sat down, so he did, right in front of everyone. Realizing what he’d done, he dropped down into his seat and tried to hide his blush by staring at the table.

     “We couldn’t have that,” said Mr. Mellark, and he plated up three pancakes and handed them over to Katniss, who thanked him with a smile. “Guests first here. Then Peeta. Then Delly may have more.”

     “Delly eats us out of house and home,” said Cap around a mouthful of pancake. Peeta kicked his brother under the table with his good leg. Delly glared and did the same.

     “You do that yourself, you goliath. You eat twice as much as I do,” she snapped at him. Katniss laughed, and it started with a snort that she was clearly embarrassed by enough that she covered her mouth throughout the entire giggling spell. Peeta looked over at her, his heart thrumming with adoration. He couldn’t help it. When Delly elbowed him lightly in the side, he turned his head, and she whispered, “I think I like her.”

     “I like her too,” he whispered back.

     “Ha, no, you’re completely smitten.”

     He wasn’t going to argue this time. Because he definitely was smitten with Katniss Everdeen. He had been in love with the idea of her for such a long time, obsessed even. But now he knew the girl, the real Katniss, the one who made her sister’s oatmeal for her and didn’t own a phone. The one that made weird jokes and watched Supernatural and kept kissing him every time she saw him. He was in love with her, from the snort in her laugh to the way she cut her pancakes into sixths and ate each piece individually.

     If this was love, how on earth did people ever manage to fall out of it?

    ****

Katniss thoroughly enjoyed having breakfast with the Mellarks and Delly. Peeta had mentioned her and how close they were, so it wasn’t surprising to see her that morning, but she hadn’t exactly expected it either. It was a good thing it was so easy to think of Delly as Peeta’s sister, with her matching golden locks and big blue eyes. It was a good thing she knew Delly wasn’t even into guys. It was a good thing Peeta kept looking at Katniss like she was the very origin of everything amazing.

     Katniss was born with a jealous streak. They said she’d shown signs of it even as a baby, when someone was paying too much attention to something else and not Katniss herself. They said she’d been very adamant about not having a sibling, because her parents were hers and hers only and she already had to share them with the Circus. They said she’d been upset when other people wanted to hold Prim or play with Prim, because Prim was her sister and hers only. But with all the knowledge she had of Delly combined with the fact that Peeta seemed to only have eyes for her, Katniss wasn’t feeling jealous at all. Which was good, because she liked Delly quite a lot.

     As they sat around the table, most of them having finished their pancakes, except for Delly and Mr. Mellark, Katniss reached for Peeta’s hand under the table.

     “Hey, Kat,” said Cap. He’d quickly shortened her name like the last part was too difficult or something, which was something people seemed to do a lot. Perhaps it was because they thought Katniss sounded weird, or because they were just trying to give her a nickname. It didn’t matter to her either way, and she was sure Cap didn’t mean anything by it. “There’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask.”

     “What?”

     “Yesterday morning, when Peeta was on the phone with you, he was laughing harder than I’d seen him laugh in a while,” he said. “I was just wondering what you had said?”

    Katniss laughed. “Oh. That. You don’t want to know.”

     “What.” Cap seemed confused.

     “That makes it sound like it was bad. Um. God, it doesn’t make sense if you don’t know the whole conversation,” she hurried to explain. She turned to Peeta, whose cheeks had faded to a soft pink since his last embarrassment. “Peeta?”

     He sighed. “I pulled an old Mrs. Mayberry, and she flipped her shit.”

     “I did not!” she protested. “I was reasonably embarrassed. I had thought I’d dialed wrong. Is that something you do a lot, then?”

     “Practically every time he answers the phone,” said Walden, rolling his eyes. “She is a character of his own invention, created one day when he still had to use his cane all the time and decided to do an impression of an old lady. He was like, eight.”

     “Yes. Well, after I revealed myself as actually Peeta,” said Peeta, grinning. “Katniss said _‘Damn you, Peeta. I hope you have nightmares where you become old Mrs. Mayberry and are forced to look at yourself naked.’_ ”

     “Yeah. Exactly,” said Katniss. Delly chuckled and peered around Peeta to look at her. “Word for word, probably.”

     “These boys have frighteningly good memories,” Delly explained. Katniss nodded—she’d noticed. “Except Walden. He’s like Dory from _Finding Nemo_.”

     “Who?” asked Walden, which made everyone laugh.

     God, wasn’t this the dream? Sitting down with a boyfriend that obviously adored her—he literally could not hide it and it was hilarious—with his family and his best friend ever, eating breakfast and laughing. It was so nice to feel welcomed into this group of strangers and it was so easy, to sit there and lose herself in it. Because Peeta was adorable and perfect and his family was amazing, from the brilliance of Mr. Mellark’s pancake-making skills to the way Delly could so perfectly imitate Cap (and vice versa—which was even funnier). It was so easy to be part of this for a moment, instead of part of what she was actually part of. The Circus.

     She wondered if this was why Gale wanted out—because the glimpses he’d had of the world, of the normalcy, and how tantalizing they’d been.  Part of it was because he didn’t feel like he belonged—he’d said as much. But maybe there was a part of him that just wanted something more. She could understand that. Katniss had never felt out of place in the Circus, but suddenly she could relate to the appeal of staying put. Of everyday averageness. She could see why Gale would rather settle down; would rather have a pancake lifestyle instead of a granola bar on the road lifestyle.

     What Gale wanted wasn’t to leave her behind, to cast aside the only family he had left. What Gale wanted was liberation. What Gale wanted was the opportunity to be something else. Not the kid with the flaming arrows, standing in the shadow of the Girl on Fire, but someone all his own. Someone with schooling, with a great job in a techy field and a nice wife and the pitter-patter of tiny feet across the floors of a house that was actually and truly his home.

     Who was she to tell him he couldn’t want that?

 ****

 “I want to see him. I want to see the monkey,” she said. Peeta was quick—he knew what she was talking about right away, even if it took him a minute to get out the words that he wanted to reply with.

     “Totally. Yeah. He’s upstairs,” he said, and he smiled at her. When she smiled back, he told his heart to stop fluttering and let him actually have more than a minute of rational, put-together thinking. Peeta pushed out his chair and stood up, with minor difficulty, because his leg protested a little bit. “Come on.”

     “Leave the door wide open, lovebugs,” said Mr. Mellark as he washed the dishes, his back to them.

     “Will do, Dad,” Peeta said back, and he could feel the embarrassed heat creeping up the back of his neck. Katniss looked at her feet. Delly snickered and got up out of her chair, throwing an arm around each of their shoulders and leaning between them.

     “I’ll be chaperone. They’re not going to start making out if I’m there, trust me. I am a great killer of the mood,” she boasted, and then started dragging them both towards the stairs. Peeta shrugged off her touch as his father laughed. Katniss didn’t. As soon as they were halfway up,  Delly and Katniss ahead of him, she started laughing.

     “So, what’s your preferred weapon?” she asked Delly, who still had an arm around her. “For killing the mood, I mean.”

     “Talking about projectile vomiting is my favorite,” Delly replied. “Or spiders. People hate spiders.”

     “Yes they do,” Katniss agreed. Delly laughed. Peeta remembered thinking that Katniss and Delly would get along, and he was one hundred percent correct. They had similar senses of humor, centered around weird and corny jokes. They both seemed to really enjoy pancakes and neither of them seemed to mind spiders very much.

     “Delly, you have your own girlfriend,” he said as they reached the top. He joined them a moment later and took Katniss by the hand. “This one is mine.”

     “Of course. She smells anyway,” Delly joked, and Katniss wrinkled her nose.

     “You’re right. I haven’t showered in like, a year.”

     “Wow. One year shower-sober. I applaud you,” Delly replied, clapping. She walked ahead and slid into Peeta’s bedroom, leaving them alone in the hall. Katniss laughed and turned to him, smiling even wider when she saw how much he was grinning.

     And then she followed Delly, venturing into his room for the first time, and looking around. Once he was inside too, he watched her face as she looked around—she looked curious and thoughtful, just taking it all in. She didn’t say anything about the bulletin board, despite the fact that a good half of it was about her. _Le Cirque du Feu_ wasn’t the only circus on his board, but it was still the most dominant, and he could see how it would seem a little odd to her. But her eyes only lingered there for a few seconds before moving on, and when she finally looked to the bookshelf against the wall his bed was on, her face completely lit up.

      “He’s so cute!” she said, and walked around the bed, kneeling in front of the shelf and getting a closer look at the monkey. “There’s paint on his feet, oh my God, did you get paint on his feet?”

     “It was an accident,” he said defensively. Delly plopped down in his desk chair and looked on with a smirk, and he made a face at her that Katniss couldn’t see. “It kind of just happened.”

     Peeta walked around his bed and sat down at the edge, watching Katniss examine his monkey. She stood up and her hands lightly grasped the edge of the shelf, like she wanted to hold him. Why she was so interested in Grr, he had no idea, but he didn’t care. She was there, his beautiful girlfriend of literally twenty-four hours, and that alone made him so happy that he didn’t care about anything else.

     “You can pick him up,” he said, and she did. Katniss scooped up the monkey and carted it over to the bed, looking him over. She made monkey sounds and waved it in Peeta’s face, which made him laugh.

     “I’m going to go hang with Walden,” announced Delly. “If either of you care. Just, leave the door open like your dad said.”

     Neither of them really acknowledged her, so she just got up and left. As she did, Peeta was gently taking Grr the monkey from Katniss’s hands. When Delly was out the door, he had one of her hands in each of his, his thumbs stroking her skin and making her shiver, apparently. She stepped closer to him and freed her hands from his grasp, putting them on his shoulders and kissing the top of his head. He closed his eyes and sighed softly.

     Fuck it.

     Peeta tilted his head back and stretched up to kiss her, but he didn’t have to strain his neck much because she met him halfway, lowering herself down onto the bed beside him. He captured her mouth with his, overlapping their lips and sliding, which was all he really knew how to do at this point. Didn’t matter. He just did that and it evolved. Her lips tasted like chocolate left over from breakfast. Between them drifted the soapy scent still left over from his shower that morning and her subtle flowery perfume that he hadn’t noticed until now. One of her hands came around the back of his neck, sliding through his hair, the other grasping the fabric at his shoulder. He refused to be embarrassed when he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, right up against him. Close enough that Delly would be telling them to leave room for Jesus.

     But she wasn’t there, so they didn’t.

     Katniss Everdeen was there in his arms, actually making out with him, and Peeta was euphoric. He was as high-on-life that he had ever been, because he was surrounded by the feeling of _her._

     They stayed in his room, switching between conversations and kissing, until she had to leave. Peeta so desperately wanted her to stay that he actually thought to himself: _Damn the Circus_. But of course, he still loved the Circus, but he had realized that he was growing to love its figurehead even more. He watched from his window as she walked to the curb, where Finnick was waiting in the Circus van ready to take her back to her world.

     Every step she took, he held tighter onto her promise to come back as soon as she could.


	9. Potential

**Chapter Eight: Potential**

 

Gale was waiting for her when she approached the stage entrance, both of their quivers nestled against his back and both bows in his hands. His dark outfit shimmered, and she remembered that even though Gale never used the function, it was programmed to burst into flames too. Katniss wondered if when he was gone, they’d find a replacement that wasn’t too afraid to dance for the crowds. She wondered, irrelevantly, if Peeta was any good at dancing. Probably not—you kind of had to have something resembling gracefulness to be able to dance, and he was the least graceful person she knew.

      “Hey,” she said to Gale, trying to be casual about it. But Katniss heard that her voice was lightly coated in guilt—guilt from giving him such a hard time over the past few days. “I’m sorry, by the way.”

     “For what?” he asked, his dark eyebrows cinched together. He handed over her bow and started to wrestle her quiver off his back.

     “For treating you like you were betraying me,” she said, looking at her feet. She curled her bare toes and wondered why Cinna let her be barefoot all the time. She had told him once in passing that she felt freer when her feet were uncovered, and within a week he had removed shoes from most of the performer’s getups. “I’m sorry that I wouldn’t accept what you wanted. I was wrong, you should have every right to leave if you want to. There’s so much potential for you outside the Circus, for things I couldn’t imagine until now, things I couldn’t understand.”

     Gale smiled. “Okay, yes. You should be sorry. But to be honest I’m kind of flattered that you cared so much about keeping me here that you went nuts every time I mentioned that I’m considering escape.”

      “You say escape like it’s a prison,” she said. Not angrily, just thoughtfully. She was done with being angry at him. Maybe to him, it was like a prison.

      “That’s not what I mean,” said Gale. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

     “Yeah, I know. You don’t feel like you belong is what you mean,” she said. “You want to find a place of your own in the world, to pursue a career and have a family of your own. Or maybe you just want the chance to have that, and you can’t find it here. I didn’t get that before, Gale, but now I do…and I think you should do what you want.”

     He pulled her into a careful hug, so as not to mess up her hair or makeup. She breathed in his familiar scent—men’s deodorant and something that reminded her of the forest—and thought about how much she would miss him.

     “That means the world to me, Catnip,” he said. And then it was time for them to go out and show the crowd what they could do.

 ****

Peeta kept checking the clock. He couldn’t help himself—she had not specified when she would be there, only that it would be shortly after she finished the show. He didn’t know what time the performance was set to start and end, but he had a general idea. While he waited, he wandered around the house with nothing to do because he and Cap weren’t working today.

     Cap was going to a thing with a group of friends and the girl he had his eye on, and Peeta stopped in the bathroom doorway to watch him get ready for it. He messed with his hair, checked his teeth, and tried on like three different shirts. At least he had a life, Peeta thought, and then he remembered that right now it was him who had a girlfriend and his brother who didn’t.

     “Are you ready to admit that you were wrong this morning and that I am the hot one?” asked Cap as he flexed his muscles in the white shirt that was his last choice. Peeta rolled his eyes.

     “Dude. We could pass as twins,” he said. He and Cap really did look alike—they both had their father’s build and his thick blond hair; their facial features were just like his too. But only Peeta had inherited his eyes and his smile—Cap and Walden had Mom’s brown eyes and Mom’s dimpled smile.

     Peeta had stopped associating Cap’s smile with Mom, though, because she didn’t smile nearly as much. So it was more like his mother had Cap’s smile instead of the other way around. It was a good thing, because whenever he thought about the good side of his mom, he started to miss her a little. She wasn’t all bad…she liked books and wore vintage clothes, and when Peeta’s nightmares had gotten bad enough that he was screaming in the middle of the night, she had crept into his room and read to him until he fell asleep, even when he was thirteen and seemed too old for it.

     She hadn’t made an announcement when she left, but it wasn’t a secret either. Mom and Dad had been growing more distant lately—they hadn’t been fighting, because they would’ve had to interact to disagree. The boys all saw that, and they saw it when she started to pack boxes full of her things, and they saw it when she had a suitcase open on the bed and was trying to cram a bunch of books in with her clothes. Peeta remembered standing there in the doorway watching her, and he remembered the sharpness in her eyes when she looked up and saw him.

     “What are you looking at?” she snapped.

     Peeta had been speechless. “Um, I…I…”

     His mother had shooed him, like he was just a nuisance, something in her way. And he happily went, because he didn’t want to watch her pack. He had already noticed the change in the way the house looked—the throw pillows were gone, and the special soaps and the good towels. He didn’t want to watch her take away any more of it.

     The next day she moved out, having rented a moving truck and everything. She took the couch, because it had apparently been hers the whole time, and she took all of the paintings she had hung up around the house. Even the nice dining chairs were gone by the time she was done and her moving buddies were closing up the back of the truck. Peeta had been sitting on the back steps, waiting to hear them drag it closed and to hear them drive away.

     But then she sat down on the step next to him and said, “It’s not about you. I read that a lot of kids blame their parents’ problems on themselves. I want you to know that it’s not your fault.”

     “Should I blame Walden? Damn, it’s that birdhouse, isn’t it?” he had pointed to a lopsided birdhouse that was painted a sickly green color. “It’s incredibly offensive.” His mother didn’t laugh, but she did smile. Cap’s smile. She shook her head and patted his shoulder awkwardly. “I know I’m not your favorite, Mom, but that doesn’t mean I think I’m driving you away or something.”

     “I was never invested in the idea of having kids. But things happen…Walden was never my plan, and neither was Cap and neither were you,” she said, and Peeta frowned. He didn’t really like where it was going. “But I’ve always loved you. I was angry, I was toxic, and I was cold…but there was never a time that I stopped loving you and I feel like I need to tell you that, Peeta, in case you didn’t know.”

     “Okay,” he had said. And then he had watched her get up and leave, listened to the engine of the moving truck as it rumbled down the driveway and out onto the street. Watching Cap get ready now reminded him of that moment for some reason…maybe it was the fact that he was going somewhere, or the fact that he had her smile and her eyes and his handwriting looked the most like hers.

      “Does Dad ever say you remind him of Mom?” asked Peeta. Cap laughed.

     “All the time. But I’m not nearly as surly,” he said. “Why?”

     “Oh. Just remembering when she left,” Peeta said and shrugged. “It’s nothing.” He had already told Cap the whole story, and they’d puzzled over it for like an hour before deciding that it was her way of saying that she was sorry. Sorry for being the way she was, and sorry for leaving the way she did.

     Cap’s smile shrunk just a little and he patted Peeta’s shoulder as he moved past. Peeta followed him down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he poured a glass of lemonade for both of them. Peeta leaned up against the counter and checked the clock again.

     “How’s your leg?” Cap asked, concern creeping into his voice. He had noticed how Peeta was favoring his good leg a little more today.

     “What? Oh, it’s fine,” he said. “I must’ve just slept on it weird or something, no big deal.”

     Cap nodded solemnly and sipped his lemonade. After a moment, he was back to grinning and he was heading out the door, telling Peeta not to party too hard while he was gone and to call if he needed anything. Typical Cap—both goofy and protective at the same time.

     Peeta checked the clock after his brother was gone, and he checked it a few minutes later. He paced around the living room. He ate one of the apples sitting in the bowl on the counter, collecting fruit flies. Before he could check again, there was a knock on the front door and he ran to get it.

     Katniss stood on the porch in the same outfit she’d been wearing before, but with her braid wrapped around her head and a purse draped over her shoulder. A big purse.

     “I wasn’t sure what you wanted to do, so I just brought a bunch of shit in case you didn’t plan anything,” she said, just walking right in. “A couple of movies, microwave popcorn, a deck of cards. I couldn’t fit the trampoline, though.”

     He chuckled. “Whatever you want to do.”

     Katniss looked at him, her eyes taking on a certain softness that made him feel all fuzzy inside. She put her bag on the floor and did the thing where she put her hands on either side of his face again, pulling him forward and touching their noses together. And then their mouths.

     She pulled away after the kiss and said, “So. I have _Contagion_ , or I have _The Bourne Identity_.”

     “What, do you really like Matt Damon?” asked Peeta. Katniss laughed, untangling herself from him and plopping down next to her bag. She dug out the movies and held them up for him.

     “I borrowed them from Gale, who has a massive DVD collection. Which is clearly because he has no life.” She smiled, and he wondered if she’d resolved her problems with him or if this was just another reprieve. He kind of wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to seem like he was jealous, or he was prying.

     “I have all the Bourne movies, but I’ve never watched _Contagion_ all the way through. It’s terrifying, you know, the whole pandemic thing,” he said, taking the case from her. “Do you wanna watch it in my brother’s room? He actually has chairs.”

     “Are you sure that’d be okay with him?”

     “Yeah,” said Peeta, though he wasn’t one hundred percent sure. Only about ninety-eight percent sure. He and Delly went up there and watched movies all the time when Walden wasn’t home, and he didn’t really give a crap as long as they didn’t mess with any of his stuff. Especially not his figurines in their original packaging. “Come on.”

     She looked unsure for about five seconds before agreeing, and he handed her the movie so that he could carry her bag up the stairs. They walked hand in hand too, and when they got there and put the movie in, they pushed Walden’s beanbag chairs close together. Katniss sat in the R2D2 one with her legs draped across Peeta’s lap (he was sitting in the boring plain black one—just one of the sacrifices he made for love). He caught himself fiddling idly with the seams on the sides of her jeans about ten minutes into the movie, but she didn’t appear to notice as she watched the story unfold on the screen. If she did, she didn’t mind, so he didn’t stop.

     She fell asleep before the end. Being the star of the Circus must’ve been pretty exhausting, so he didn’t blame her. He managed to pick her up and carry her just across the hall to his room, but only that far, and he was weak enough that he dropped her unceremoniously on the bed when he got there. It woke her up, of course, and caused a fit of giggles from both sides, which turned into a tickling war, which turned into a lot of little kisses. Horizontal kisses, yes, but they were short and sweet and interrupted by laughter.

     Eventually they calmed down and Katniss had to go, but she said she wished she could’ve stayed and had a longer nap. With him. Peeta was both disarmed and thrilled at once, and in response to his wide-eyed look, she laughed and kissed him.

     “Meet me at the gate when the Circus closes,” she said, and then winked, which left him fumbling for words.

      “Okay,” he got out, and she kissed him again before she left. She always left him like that: red-faced and thoroughly kissed, with a promise that they’d be seeing each other again soon. He wished that it could always be like that, and that that promise could always be fulfilled…

       He didn’t like to think about the day the Circus would leave. Every day he spent with Katniss was better, and he fell more in love with her all the time, but _Le Cirque du Feu_  did not stay anywhere for long. And therefore neither did Katniss.

 ****

After the show, Katniss and Gale got burgers from Sae and ate at a table near the animal tent, with an extra double cheeseburger for Prim when she came out. Gale hadn’t said anything yesterday when she was with Peeta, holding his hand, and he hadn’t asked about the situation since. So Katniss should’ve expected it when he brought it up. She should have thought he would.

     “So that guy you were with yesterday?” Gale inquired, peeling off the bun of his second burger and adding his extra mayonnaise. Katniss wrinkled her nose at the condiment and was about to voice how gross she thought it was, but then she realized that he had asked her a question.

     “What?”

     “The blond one. Big guy, about my height but more square shaped,” said Gale, demonstrating the general shape of Peeta’s shoulders. “And he was holding your hand. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten him already.”

     “I haven’t.”

      Gale laughed, and pointed over her shoulder to the entrance of the animal tent. She turned to see Prim striding towards them, still in costume. She reached the table and sat next to Gale, asking, “What’re you guys talking about?”

     “Katniss’s boyfriend,” Gale said, teasingly. He didn’t realize, apparently, that Peeta was actually Katniss’s boyfriend. Prim nodded and started unwrapping her burger.

      “Peeta? I haven’t really met him yet, only spoken to him on the phone when he called for Katniss,” she said, checking under the bun to make sure her favorite toppings were all there. “He seems pretty nice, I guess.”

      “Wait, you mean to tell me that he actually is your boyfriend? When did you meet him?” Gale asked, his brow furrowed, his chewing becoming more intense as he stared at her. Katniss grimaced—he was such a slob, talking with his mouth full and mayonnaise on the corner of his mouth, but he was her friend and she had gotten over it. For the most part.

      “When I was six. We reconnected just the other day, though,” she said.

     “The day Finnick said that love was in her cards,” Prim added. Katniss glared at her. “What? That is what he said.”

      “You didn’t go out with him because Finnegan said that, did you? You know all that is a load of crap, right?” Gale said, putting down his food and gulping down some soda. It was no secret that Gale thought Finnick was a phony and a narcissist. Katniss knew that Finn was just really confident and proud of what he could do. He used to be a little kid with dead parents doing magic tricks on the street, but then Mags took him in and brought him to the Circus, and he had the chance to shine. Finnick was spectacular, whether or not the word was part of his stage name.

     “No,” said Katniss to Gale through gritted teeth. “I went out with him because he liked me, and he told me as much, and I happen to like him back. He’s very sweet and funny and just generally great.”

      Gale’s shoulders sunk. “Okay. Sorry.”

      “I wouldn’t do something because some damn cards told me to, any more than you would. You should know that,” Katniss continued. “And I’m not going to tell you again to call him Finnick; I don’t care if you don’t believe that’s his real name, you’re going to call him that because that is what he wants. He’s only ever been a friend to you, so stop treating him like some scumbag fraud.”

     Gale didn’t say anything for a long time, only nodded and continued eating his burger. Katniss could practically smell the unease that was rolling off of him now that she’d scolded him properly. It was both funny and not funny at once.

      They all finished up their food and Gale threw away the garbage in a trash can by the path, which reminded Katniss of yesterday morning when Peeta accidentally tossed his retainer into the garbage. Which reminded her of his rant in the bathroom that ended in the bold move that surprised even Katniss herself: the kiss.

     Prim ran off to change into her regular clothes and Gale and Katniss wandered around the fairgrounds together, wordlessly, for what seemed like forever. When he finally opened his mouth to speak, she didn’t know whether to be relieved that he was breaking the silence or scared of what he might say.

     “Peeta, huh?” he asked, pleasantly. He didn’t even judge the name, which was something Gale tended to do despite the fact that he was named _Gale._ He always forgot that it was pretty much a girl’s name. Katniss nodded. “And you really like him?”

     “I really do,” she said.

     “Is that where you’ve been lately, whenever I can’t find you? With him?” asked Gale, and she nodded again. She had been spending a lot of time with Peeta, hours at a time, as if always being with him for several days would make up for the fact that she was leaving at the end of the next week.

       “It’s better than doing nothing all day like I usually do,” she said with a shrug. Gale made a face. “What?”

     “I just never thought that you’d be into something that wouldn’t last,” he said, really casually. He even added a shrug onto the end. “Like, I support anything that you want and all, but you know that it won’t work out, right?”

     Katniss’s spirits sunk as if there were cinder blocks tied to them, dragging them deeper into the depths of some random lake in the middle of nowhere.

     “Of course,” she said with faux certainty. And she had known, she just hadn’t thought about it—she had chosen not to think about it because of the dark and mournful feeling it inspired in the pit of her stomach. She had lost out on a lot of things in life, like graduations and school dances and having a dad to talk to about boys. But having a boyfriend wasn’t something she was missing, but it was going to be something she’d be losing, in the end.

     The lack of time she had with Peeta was actually astounding, and she didn’t know how to handle it at all.

 ****

When he met her at the gates, Katniss seemed distant. Peeta asked her what was wrong and she perked up rather quickly, but only on the outside; he noticed that her smile didn’t spread far enough to light her eyes.

     “Nothing,” she said. “I have something to show you.”

     She took him by the hand and led him through the Circus gates. He held on to her tightly, wishing that he’d never have to let go.

     “Are you sure?” he asked as he walked along, stumbling a bit to keep up. She slowed down to accommodate his pace, but it didn’t look like a conscious effort—which made him smile just a little at the fact that she was already so used to him. “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?”

     “Yes.”

     “So you’re one hundred percent a-okay?”

     “Um. Yes.”

     “You hesitated,” said Peeta teasingly. Katniss shook her head. “Yes, you did. I swear, if something is wrong, you can tell me. I’m not some leather clad bad boy that you can’t trust with your secrets or something.”

     She laughed at that. “No, you’re not,” she said, but that was the end of it. She didn’t tell him anything, just led him along the lantern-lit paths toward the main tent where the arena was. He could tell that the inside was dark, and the outside torches on either side of the entrance cast glowing orbs onto the outside walls. Katniss stopped right in front of it.

     “Close your eyes,” she said, and he didn’t protest.

    “Do you mind if I ask why?” asked Peeta, and Katniss laughed again. But it was forced, a light and chirpy sound that didn’t incorporate any snorting or genuine amusement. Something was on her mind, something squashing her real laughter. But Peeta let him lead her forward, right into the center of the arena that everybody had to cross through before getting to their seats. They stood right in the middle on the bumpy ground and Katniss let go of him, stepping back.

     “Okay, open,” she said, and he let his eyes flutter open again. “And look up.”

      He tilted his head back to see that the dark inside of the tent no longer appeared to be striped with red, but instead was a solid navy blue. It glittered with lights that cascaded down all the walls around them and sprinkling the bleachers. Below him, there was a large patch of fake turf and a blanket spread out across it. It was a Care Bear blanket, which made him smile and turn to Katniss. For the first time, it seemed like she was looking at him the way he looked at her.

     “This is fantastic,” he said softly to her, beaming. She grinned back, but there was still a glimmer of something else in her, something he couldn’t determine or understand. “Does it do this every night?”

     “Yep. I don’t know how the tech works, but I’m pretty sure there’s something to do with solar panels,” she said. “This was the last thing my dad was working on before he died. You see, my mom grew up in this really rural area that was far enough from all the big cities that even on a night that wasn’t completely clear, you could see the stars. She was starting to miss that, so he was making this for her.”

     “Why show it to me, then?”

     “I don’t know, I just thought you’d appreciate it. I come here to think sometimes, in the middle of the night.”

     “What do you think about?” he asked, just out of curiosity. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me or anything I promise I don’t mean to sound like I’m interrogating you I just ask a lot of questions and I should probably stop doing that. I should probably stop talking.”

     Katniss nodded absently and sat down on the blanket, reclining to look up at the faux stars. “They don’t look like stars, they look like lights on the ceiling,” she mused. “But I suppose that was better than not being able to see them much at all. Or maybe, it was just the thought that counted. She came in here and cried a lot in the days following his accident.”

     He nodded and joined her, stretching out his legs so that they hung over the edge of the blanket and touched the scratchy turf. He didn’t care.

      “And to answer your question, I think about whatever happens to be on my mind. Something someone said, something I watched happen in some TV show, whatever,” Katniss sighed. “I think about my parents a lot. I wonder if I’ll ever love someone as much as they loved each other.” 

     Peeta wanted to tell her she would, and he wanted to tell her that he hoped it would be him. Of course, that was among the worst things he could say. So instead, he looked at her eyes and finally deciphered what was behind them: sadness. “What’s wrong? I mean for real, you can’t dodge my question this time.”

     She took a deep breath and continued to stare up at the ceiling before finally muttering, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

     “Do what?” Peeta asked, rolling onto his side and peering down at her. She reached up, brushed his curls out of his eyes, and pulled him down so she could press a kiss to his nose. Then she moved him aside and sat up.

     “Peeta. I mean that I don’t know if we can be a couple,” she said. “I don’t know if I can let myself fall in love with someone that I’m going to leave behind in a matter of days, and who I might not see again for a really long time.”

      “You don’t know if you can love me?” he whispered, propping himself up on his elbows and staring blankly at her. He remembered what his mom had said; how it was never her plan to have children. It was never Katniss’s plan to get involved with Peeta, either. He remembered all the Valentine’s Days at school when he never got anything and wondered if anyone that wasn’t related to him would ever tell him they loved him.

     “It’s going to be over soon, Peeta, and I don’t know if I can invest myself without getting too hurt,” Katniss said, sighing again, but he could tell it was just to cover up the quiver in her voice. She wouldn’t look at him, and he suddenly regretted asking what was wrong. “You have the potential to mean so much to me…but if I let that happen, and then I walk away, I’m just hurting the both of us, aren’t I?”

     Peeta couldn’t say a word. Katniss hauled herself to her feet.

     “You’re not even going to fight me about this, are you? You’re just going to let me walk away?”

     He shook his head. “Please don’t. I love you.”

     “That’s what I was afraid of,” Katniss replied, and he could see now that there were tears leaking out of her eyes. His eyes were stinging and his vision was blurred even with his glasses on. He barely managed to scramble to his feet before she turned again, barely managed to grab onto her before she could leave him there alone.

     “Katniss, please,” was all he could say. He wanted to ask her why she even kissed him in the first place, he wanted to ask what brought this idea on, that she had to leave him before she could love him. He wanted to ask so many things, but all he could say was, “Please.”

     It didn’t stop her, because she was too scared, or too determined. She just slipped out of his grasp and ran off towards the backstage entrance. He shouldn’t have pestered her about what was wrong, because if he hadn’t they could be making out on the goddamned fake grass under the fake stars. He shouldn’t have told her that he loved her.

     But now that he had done those things, he should have gone after her, but he just turned and ran the opposite way.


	10. Spring Cleaning

**Chapter Nine: Spring Cleaning**

 

When Katniss was sure he was gone, when she was sure he wasn’t going to run after her or wait for her there, she went back to the arena and cried under the stars.

     She had planned to lie here with him for much longer, to enjoy some quality time alone. She had planned to point out the speckled constellations that her father had configured into the ceiling above, not the typical ones but formations of his own invention. A flower that he had claimed was definitely from a katniss plant and another that he swore was primrose. The outline of a mockingjay, and the delicate form of a huntress about to let an arrow fly.

     But Gale’s words had been hard to swallow and even when she had managed, they stuck to her ribs and lingered.  _I just never thought that you’d be into something that wouldn’t last._ When Peeta asked what was wrong, she just couldn’t keep it in any longer, and everything she’d been thinking about bombarded her all at once.

      She had felt hopeless and had told him as much. She had felt as though she really couldn’t take it if she let it go on only to watch it fall apart later. Long distance things never worked, especially when one party didn’t have a phone or even really an address. She could change part of that, sure, but would it really make a difference?

     Peeta had pleaded with her to stay, but she couldn’t find a reason to. When he’d said what he said, it had chilled her to the bone. His _I love you_ was the point of no return, condemning and foreboding and beautiful. It was the proof that they were both in over their heads and that what they had just couldn’t go on any longer. So she’d done what she often did—she ran.

     Running didn’t do much to help her with solving the problem, but it helped her avoid it. The truth of the matter had been that she couldn’t face Peeta anymore, not after what she’d just done to him. She had seen it in his eyes, remnants of past rejection and hopelessness. His mother had just left last month, for God’s sake, and Katniss had had the gall to stand up and say that she wasn’t sure staying with him was the best idea.

     She was thinking that she didn’t want to hurt. She was thinking that she’d lost enough. She was thinking that they didn’t have a chance anyway. She wasn’t thinking about him when she’d said it, and that was the worst part. Not leaving him behind, but making him think that she didn’t and couldn’t love him. Making him think that maybe he wasn’t good enough.

     It was the most untrue thing, though—he was the best. Peeta Mellark had wooed her without even trying—first with his fragile heart at six and then with his bumping into bathroom walls at seventeen. He’d reeled her in by laughing at her terrible jokes and with his compelling storytelling ability. His smile and the way he was always turning some shade of red. He made her want to love him, and he made her want to never leave. But she had to.

 ****

He came home to find Walden eating Neapolitan ice cream at the kitchen table and staring off into space, a thoughtful crease between his brows. Peeta sniffled, still feeling the burn of his tears in his eyes and throat, and grabbed a plastic spoon from the cup on the table as he sat down with his brother. They had used the good silverware at breakfast, and the rest was at Mom’s, sitting in the drawer at her new apartment across town.

     “Little brother,” said Walden, belatedly registering his presence. “You seem down.”

    “So do you,” said Peeta, reaching for the ice cream container and dragging it closer to himself so he could get a spoonful. He dragged his spoon through the softened chocolate part and slid the creamy coldness into his mouth. “You have that look, the one you get when you’re about to try and leave Myra again.”

     Walden grimaced. “Is it that obvious?”

     “Dude. You’re sitting in the kitchen alone, eating from the ice cream carton,” Peeta replied. “And you have a terrible case of the puppy dog eyes. It is not rocket science. Eventually she’ll get tired of this on-off shit if you keep it up.”

      “Dude, I’m twenty and still living under my father’s roof. I dropped out of college. I work for free at the bakery and make crappy birdhouses which has literally earned me like ten bucks in the last year. I am a loser—Myra deserves better, don’t you think?”

       “Myra deserves to be happy, and you make her happy. That’s not enough for you?” asked Peeta. Walden shrugged. Myra, being older, would be finished with school soon and would have an actual career in sales. Another reason Walden felt that she was too good for him, though she really wasn’t. They were from the same world, born and raised in Panem City by shopkeepers.

      Peeta and Katniss could never have that in common.

      “You found yourself a good one, Walden,” he said, staring at a heaping spoonful of ice cream poised above the table. He hadn’t even been paying attention to what he was doing when he scooped it out, and when he glanced at the container he realized that he and Walden had made a considerable dent since he’d walked in. “Hold onto her as long as you can.”

     “She dropped you, didn’t she?” asked Walden after a moment of silence.

      “Like a hot potato.”

     “At least that implies that you’re hot,” said his brother with a laugh. Walden stuck his spoon into the ice cream and shoved the container away. He then reached over and clasped Peeta on the shoulder. “I saw why you liked her, buddy, but she was always going to have to go at some point.”

      “I know,” said Peeta.

      “I would’ve thought she’d want to make the most of what you did have, you know? From what I saw, she was pretty into you,” said Walden. Peeta wrinkled his nose. “I swear I’m not saying that just to make you feel better.”

       “I know. You’ve never lied to me in my life,” said Peeta. “Except for when my fish died and you guys went and got me a new one thinking I wouldn’t know the difference.”

     “You knew about that? I told him, I told him that you’d notice,” Walden sputtered. “But he was all like _no, he won’t, it looks the same_. Cap is smarter than me, but that day, he was an idiot.”

     Peeta laughed. He still felt like Katniss had burned a hole through his stomach or something equally painful, but the pain was lessened just a little with the laughter. That and the reminder that no matter what, he was still loved.

       When he stood up, mumbling about going to bed, Walden gave him an awkward hug. Peeta headed upstairs and looked to his bulletin board. Katniss had laughed at it when she’d seen it, and she’d pointed out all the pictures that she’d faked a smile for…information he could’ve figured out for himself, because he’d seen her real smile.

       Slowly, he approached the board, giving it a good long look. Other circus tickets poked out from beneath the posters and pictures from _Le Cirque du Feu_ , insignificant to Peeta though still related to the theme of the board. Between an old ad in the paper and the printout of an article from the Circus website, there was a wallet sized print of Delly’s school picture, where she posed with her thumbs up and the biggest grin on her face. Much to the chagrin of the photographer, of course. Near the bottom of the board, there was a birthday card that Walden had made him, covered in horrendously drawn stick figures.

     Peeta pulled out a thumbtack and put it in the tin on his desk. He pulled out another and another, letting pictures and papers and memorabilia fall to the floor around his feet. His ticket stubs, his posters, his articles. He pulled it all away until what was left was what mattered. The stuff that he’d forgotten was even there.

     A picture he had drawn of a princess and beside it, Delly’s not-as-great dragon that went with.

     Him and Cap as babies, not even a year apart, sitting on a blanket together playing with alphabet blocks—you could tell them apart only by Peeta’s leg and Cap’s big brown eyes as he stared up at the camera with his hand in his mouth.

      A Disney World photo of the whole family, which was the Christmas card that year.

      The orange paper heart his mother had written his name on in cursive when he was five. He remembered thinking it was the best thing ever because next to his blocky letters, her handwriting was gorgeous.

     He swept up all the Circus things and put them in the wastebasket by his desk. He felt as though he were sweeping away everything that wasn’t real, all the flashy things that looked nice, and leaving behind the pieces of himself that he’d covered up.

     Before he went to bed, he printed up a photo he’d taken on his phone: Katniss wielding a forkful of pancakes, a smile on her face that was more genuine than any of the ones that had been there before. He may have been giving up on the grandeur and fantasy of the Circus, but there was no way in hell he was giving up on her.

 ****

“What did you do?” asked Delly bluntly when she walked into his room that morning. He had already been awake, but the distant kind of awake, the kind where you stare at the ceiling and breathe like you’re still sleeping, because you wish you still were.

     Peeta struggled to sit up in bed, groaning when he kicked himself in the leg. The bad leg. He made a wall of pillows against his headboard and looked to the bulletin board, frowning at how barren it looked now. He could see the papers stuck out of the trash and a lingering ticket stub on the floor.

     “Spring cleaning. A month or so late.” He could taste the bitterness of his own voice. Delly turned around, frowning at him.

     “What about the Circus?” she asked, caution growing with every syllable.

     “The Circus is a dream,” he replied, still staring steadily at the board. “I mean, it’s real and tangible, but part of my fascination with it stemmed from the dream to be part of it. You knew that more than I did.”

     “Yeah…”

     “I’m never going to be part of a circus, any circus,” he said. “It’s just silly to think so.”

     He threw back his covers and swung his legs to the floor. The good one managed to support him as he hobbled over to stand beside Delly. He was half-dressed in just a pair of athletic shorts on over his underwear, but neither he nor Delly gave two shits about it. What bothered him was how much his leg was hurting—it was just a bad couple of days in that department—and how much his heart was hurting too.

     “What about Katniss?” she asked. Peeta winced, and the look in her eyes told him that she immediately regretted mentioning it. “What happened?”

     He shook his head. “We’re not a thing anymore, apparently,” he said, and then staggered back to the bed. The pain shot up his leg and he just felt generally weak, so he pointed to where his old cane was leaning against the wall in the corner of the room, covered in orange duct tape and doodles. Delly dutifully retrieved it for him and then sat down on the mattress beside him.

     “I’m so sorry, Peeta,” she said, hugging him from the side and burying her face between his shoulder and neck. He held her close and pressed his face into her hair. He was glad that she didn’t feel like Katniss, or smell like Katniss—she was just Delly, his friend, his sister, the constant joy of his life.

     He dissolved into tears again when he explained the pivotal events of the previous night, from the very moment he met her at the gate to the moment she ran off, her father’s stars hanging overhead. Delly held him the whole time, patting his back and allowing him to dampen the shoulders of her dress with the saltwater leaking from his eyes. He was gasping and sniffling and it was altogether the worst type of crying, but it was Delly—she had already seen him at his worst.

     “I shouldn’t have,” he said. “I shouldn’t have told her that, I shouldn’t have let her go.”

      “I know honey,” said Delly soothingly. In the back of his mind, he thought about how great of a mother Delly was going to make someday, if she and her future partner ever had children. “I know.”

      “My hopes. I shouldn’t have let them climb so high. I had always _hoped_ , but…”

     “I don’t think that’s it. I think that you invested yourself too deeply to quickly,” Delly said. “But hope is one of the best things to have. Peeta, there will be other girls—that’s what you have to hope for now.”

     Peeta just cried, because he didn’t want another girl. It was one thing for him to be pining after some dazzling Circus performer, a dream of a girl, but he had woken up when he walked into that bathroom by mistake. Or maybe when they’d walked the arena. The fact of the matter was that even if the Circus was a dream, Katniss wasn’t. Katniss had been real, and she had been with him, and she had at least felt something.

     The only thing he wanted to hope for was her, and she was already slipping away. She was probably twirling away in her flaming gown by now, rebuilding her insides from the ordeal of the night before. Under that canopy of stripes that turned into stars at night. Soon enough, Peeta thought, he would just be someone in another town that she’d left behind.

   ****

Haymitch Abernathy, for all his drunken and slurred words of the past, was quite good at the concise art of hollering at a teenage girl. He wasn’t persuasive or threatening or anything, not by a long shot, but Katniss admired his effort. He stood outside her door and shouted about pleasing the audience being more of a priority than anything and how whatever was keeping her cooped up in the RV could wait until the performance was done with.

     For the first leg of the lecture, she’d been sprawled on Prim’s couch bed, where she’d slept a night of fitful sleep with her sister’s warm body curled beside her. Partway through she’d gotten up to use the restroom and then gone to lie crookedly across her own tangled covers. She could still hear every word, so there was definitely something to be said about Haymitch’s volume and clarity. Or it was just that the walls of the RV didn’t really keep out the sound.

    She didn’t say anything when he’d finished. She let the silence speak for her.                           

     She wasn’t coming out for the performance, and she’d told Prim that much. Of course she’d taken it to the proprietor, to Abernathy, the guy who lost AA chips almost as soon as he got them. As far as family went, he was like a washed up weirdo uncle who happened to be filthy rich because he’d married into a wealthy family and lost his pretty heiress to a texting-and-driving accident.

     “Katniss!” he bellowed, pounding on the door again with lessened vigor. “It’s too late to just cancel, and it frankly isn’t complete without you.”

     She wasn’t coming out for the show. She wasn’t coming out until they’d driven over the border and into West Virginia. Until she was far enough away from Peeta that her heart stopped screaming and reaching for him through the bars of its skeleton prison, calling his name over and over. The thought of that was scary, but that’s what it felt like, as far-fetched and ridiculous as it was.

     Haymitch shut up. She could hear hushed mumblings, and realized there must’ve been someone standing there with him. Otherwise he was just cursing to himself. Equally as likely, actually.

    She was startled by the sound of Finnick clearing his throat in the distinctive way he did, and looked up to find him standing in the doorway to her bedroom with his hands on his hips. Disapprovingly.

     “I’ve been distracting them, but they’re awfully tired of my tricks. You have like five minutes to get your pert little ass down to the tent and get dressed and get out there,” he said, not gently but not harshly either. “Only if you want to, I mean, but you really ought to.”

     “Why should I?” she asked, making no move to do anything but lie there.

     “Because it’d be the right thing to do. Staying here is selfish. Whatever you’re wallowing about, is it really more important than the Circus?” Finnick asked, his tone softening as he moved across the room. His calculated grace was still there, omnipresent in every cell of his body. He sat beside her on the bed. “If need be, I think they can wait like, ten minutes instead of five.”

      She groaned.

     “Hey,” he said. She looked up into his wisened eyes and saw the knowing in them: he had somehow learned of what had happened, whether through his cards or through good old fashioned eavesdropping. “It’s okay. Just. Think on it. Maybe you’ll make the show this evening.”

     “Maybe,” she said. He patted her forehead in a way that was equal parts gentle and awkward and even a little brotherly. As he got up to leave—hopefully he’d go through the front door this time, instead of just appearing—he stopped in the doorway.

     “There was love in your cards, Katniss,” said Finnick quietly. She turned her head to see that he’d left a card on the covers without her realizing it. She picked it up, turning it over to find that it was blank. When she looked at him, confused, he shrugged. “They speak their own language. There was love in your cards and there still is, but it never said that it’d be easy.”

     And then he was gone.

     She did what most decent people would do: she followed him. She did the show, felt alive in her fire, and then ran back to her RV to hide away again until the next one. By the evening performance, her heart ached less but she still felt shitty.

     What Katniss figured out in that day they lost was not that Prim’s new body soap made her skin feel rubbery or that Macaroni and Cheese was better if you put in extra butter (though she did figure those things out—you learn something new every day). What she realized was that being in love wasn’t easy, and that you couldn’t just pull yourself away from it when it didn’t look like it’d work out. She asked herself if she’d go back and do it differently—pretending nothing was wrong, or expressing her worries without the cynicism and running parts.

     Yes, she would’ve, because then she’d still have Peeta.

     Katniss asked herself if she could handle going back to him, letting herself love him for just the short time until she left?

     Maybe…probably. She was surprised at the willpower she seemed to have when it came to him.

     The question she really wanted answered was a lot trickier. Had she hurt Peeta as much as she feared she had? Had she pushed him away to the point of no return? If she went to him, would he bother taking her back?

     The real question was whether or not Peeta had given up on her the second she walked out of that tent, and it was the question she didn’t have an answer to.


	11. Early Thursday Morning

**Chapter Ten: Early Thursday Morning**    

 

She felt like her mother.          

     Lying on her back in Prim’s bed, she stared numbly at the ceiling. In the murky hours of the morning, her mind could typically go anywhere, but now it centered on the feeling of something lost. She felt like her mother in that she didn’t get up, felt like she couldn’t because of the feeling. She felt like her mother in the tears she didn’t shed, and in how tempted she was to go about life trying not to think about it ever again. But she couldn’t avoid bread, or the arena, or Sae’s concessions stand like her mother could avoid the emergency room and the Circus and Katniss.

     She shouldn’t have made the comparison, because her mother had lost her husband to a deadly collision on an interstate. Katniss had only missed out on a boy because of some words she took to heart and shouldn’t have, and looming departure, and her own doubt.

      Katniss started to get up, peeling herself from sweat-dampened sheets and jostling the mattress as little as possible. Prim stirred, her bare feet jutting out from beneath her flowered sheet, her braids flopping in a different way—a toss and a turn before she settled back into peaceful sleep. Katniss lingered there for a moment, standing over her in the dark.

     And then she went to get dressed, in shorts and one of her t-shirts from the drawer that held souvenirs from various places the Circus had been. This one was from Seattle, with the space needle jutting up towards a sparkling nighttime sky. She put on flip-flops and pulled back her hair, and then ventured back out into the living area of the RV, dark and silent save for the lights on the appliances in the kitchen and Prim’s soft and sleepy breaths.

     Outside, there were more sounds to flood her ears: chirping crickets, especially. The light was edging up into the sky just east of where she stood—she couldn’t see the sun yet, but the pinks and oranges pooled into the clouds above the trailers and tents of the Circus. No matter how much it moved, no matter how many places it had been, this Circus had always been home.

     But entertaining the idea of wanting something else was slowly becoming easier.

 ****

Peeta’s father woke him up early that morning, asking if he wanted to join him at the bakery. He’d be prepping everything for the day and he knew that sometimes, when Peeta was going through something particularly frustrating, he liked to help—for some reason, the bakery in the morning relaxed him. He couldn’t pinpoint why.

     Maybe it was that morning, when Peeta was four and he couldn’t sleep after a surgery and had been sitting at the top of the stairs when Dad woke up. He remembered his father passing by and looking up at him and smiling sadly, asking if he wanted to go to the bakery. Peeta had said yes, and they drove there in the dark, cold morning. Peeta had been set upon the counter and asked to stir something in a bowl, and for the first time in a while he had felt capable, helpful, useful. Other little kids could run around and fetch things, and Peeta could always stir.

     But this morning, he hesitated.

     “I don’t know if I’m up to it,” he said sleepily, yawning. “Tired.”

     “How’s your leg?” asked his father. Peeta propped himself up on his elbows.

     “Hurts.”

     “Here,” said his father, handing him his pain medication and a glass of water. But he wasn’t looking at Peeta, he was looking at his bulletin board. Once the most eye-catching thing in the room, apparently still the most eye-catching, because of how stripped it seemed since he’d switched priorities. “Do you want one of your brothers to stay with you today?”

     Peeta grimaced. No, he didn’t want help. But he might end up needing it—to get food, to get down the stairs, to hold himself up when he did things that needed two hands.

     He nodded. “Cap,” he said. Cap was better at it. Cap was the nurturing one, despite his attitude and constant teasing. Walden would drift around silently, popping in and asking random questions, which always startled Peeta far too much. Plus, Walden had gone to Myra’s last night and hadn’t come home.

     Dad nodded and slipped out of the room. He could hear him in the hallway, opening Cap’s bedroom door with a creak and trudging into the room, where he proceeded to shake Cap awake and tell him to take care of his brother. Peeta listened to their hushed words as he swallowed his pills, and then he pulled his sheet back up around him and buried his face in his pillow, falling back asleep.

     It felt like just a few minutes later when someone started knocking on the front door. It probably was—Dad might’ve forgotten his keys.

     “CAP!” Peeta yelled. Nothing. “CAP, GET UP!”

     Cap could be heard cursing and stumbling out of bed. He was at Peeta’s door in seconds, an alarmed look in his eyes.

     “What? Are you okay?”

     “Yes. Someone’s at the door,” he said. “Probably Dad.”

     Cap nodded and relaxed. He didn’t know what had been going through his brother’s mind, but it obviously hadn’t been good. When he’d woken to Peeta calling his name, he must’ve thought the worst. He turned and left the room, heading downstairs to see who was there. Peeta tried to go back to sleep.

    He heard Cap opening the door downstairs, talking to someone, and then he faded back into sleep for a few minutes before he woke up again to the sound of his bedroom door opening. With the footsteps he heard, he thought, _Delly_ , and buried his face in his pillow.

     But Delly wouldn’t stop in the middle of the room as the footsteps had. Delly probably wouldn’t be here this early in the morning. Delly wouldn’t have knocked, because as soon as Mom moved out she’d gotten her hands on a key.

     The footsteps fled, and he heard Cap’s voice in the hallway. “What, is he sleeping?” A pause. “He probably isn’t, he just wants you to think he is. Flicker the lights or something.”

      “You’re insane!” was the reply, crisp and clear and accusatory. Peeta knew that voice, but he figured he was dreaming. “I’m not going to do that. If he wants me to think he’s sleeping then he wants me to go away. So I should go.”

     “He could actually be sleeping,” said Cap. “Do you want me to wake him?”

     Peeta turned over and peered out into the hall through half-lidded eyes, at the light that spilled onto the carpet from the doorway, and at the two figures standing there casting shadows. The familiar bulky figure of his brother, talking to someone smaller and darker than Delly, someone that looked an awful lot like Katniss.

     He pushed himself up on one arm and squinted at her. “Katniss?”

     She turned and looked at him, her expression blurred somewhat by the distance. He fumbled for his glasses on the nightstand, slid them on, and took in her widened eyes and trembling lower lip. Cap was walking away, muttering something about a door.

     She padded forward into the room, hesitating about halfway to him. He just turned on his lamp and looked at her. Her Seattle t-shirt, her bare, suntanned legs, and her toenails with chipping nail polish.

     “What are you doing here?” he asked without looking her in the eye, watching as her toes curled in her flip-flops. They were green, the same shade as her Converse. When she didn’t answer, he looked up to find that she was biting her thumbnail and that there were tears dampening her cheeks. His heart clenched. “Katniss.”

     She let out a strangled sob and took one step, but she stopped again. Peeta’s vision swam and his chest tightened—shit, he was going to cry too. He struggled to sit up and opened his arms to her, not caring that he wasn’t dressed or presentable, just wanting her back. Katniss scrambled towards him and onto the bed, the most undignified movements he’d ever seen her make—in desperation and tears, another sob falling from her lips as she latched onto him. Her head fell against his bare chest as she curled against him, whispering broken apologies into his skin.

     Peeta stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head, holding her as close as he could.

     When she calmed down, she was still in his arms for a minute before she wiggled into a more comfortable position with her head on the pillow and her face just an inch from his. He looked into her eyes, which were still puffy and glistening, and reached up to brush some of her hair out of her face. Her nose brushed against his.

     “Do you still…” she paused, snuggling closer and draping one arm around his middle. She kicked off her shoes and they fell off the mattress.

     “Do I still what?” he asked. Katniss’s eyelids fluttered and she relaxed against him and his pillow, her breathing regular again and slowing into the rhythm of sleep. He shook her lightly so she didn’t drift off on him.

      “Do you still love me?”

     “Of course. It’s been twenty four hours, Katniss, not twenty four years,” he said, and she laughed lightly. Her eyes closed completely.

      “Good,” she murmured, and then she was out. Like him, it seemed, she hadn’t been sleeping very well. With the feel of her against him, the steadiness of her breathing and the soft, barely audible sounds she made when she periodically shifted positions, it didn’t take long for him to fall asleep with her.

    ****

She woke him up with kisses.

     First she pressed her lips to his palm, which had previously been splayed over her hip—obviously not intentionally, since he was asleep. Then she dropped his hand and moved closer, pushing up the hair on his forehead to kiss him right between the eyebrows.

     Peeta stirred, and she giggled despite herself. Katniss didn’t giggle much, but Peeta made her want to. He made her want to do a lot of things she typically didn’t want to do.

     When she kissed the tip of his nose, he scrunched up his face and his arms reached for her, almost unconsciously. She let his fingers find her waist and let his eyes crack open before she moved to kiss the underside of his jaw.

      “Katnissss what’re youdoin?” he slurred sleepily, and she laughed against his cheek as she brought her lips to it, and then to his temple, and then his ear. She was surprised when he smoothly moved his head back to catch one of her lips between his, an impressive maneuver to say the least. His hand cupped the back of Katniss’s head, fingers catching in the strands of hair that had come loose from her braid. The other hand flattened against her back and eased her down toward him, pressing her into every line of his body.

     Every line. She kissed him a little longer, sliding her hands over his shoulders and savoring the sweet softness of his lips as they opened to her.  And then she pushed herself up on her hands and looked down at him.

     “What?” he asked, his eyes open and alert.

     “Oh, I think you know what,” she said, and then rolled off of him. She sat at his side, her legs folded into one another, as he lay there staring at the ceiling. Frozen by embarrassment, his already flushed cheeks turning redder.

      “Oh my God,” he choked on his words. He sat up and swallowed hard, avoiding her eyes. Even if that meant staring at her knees. “I am so sorry. I didn’t. It happens. In the morning.”

     “It’s fine,” she said. And it was. She just hadn’t been prepared to feel that particular part of him against her, especially not in the state that it was in. She knew it was natural and that he couldn’t control it, really, and she knew that he was absolutely mortified right now for it. “I…I just didn’t want to. You know. Make it worse.”

     Peeta struggled to form words. He had grabbed one of his pillows and sort of used it to hide what was happening down there, and he was turning even redder by the second.

     “I can, um, leave the room. If you want.”

     “Why would I want that?” he asked, finally turning his widened eyes back up to hers.

     “So you could. Um.” Katniss looked pointedly at the pillow shielding his groin. Peeta cringed. “Or not. Whatever.”

     “I…I um…could I just kiss you just a little more?” he asked, the words falling from his lips in a tumble of syllables. He looked away from her again, staring at the wall. “I mean. Only if you want. And I would have to eventually…deal with it. Yeah.”

     Katniss thought about that, and then nodded. More kissing sounded great. And so he left the pillow where it was and leaned in to kiss her again. Eventually, they moved closer to one another, leaving the pillow between them until Peeta really couldn’t take it any longer.

     When that happened, Katniss laughed and ran from the room, shutting the door behind her. She felt exhilarated, euphoric, her mouth still tingling from the parting kiss they’d shared. Her stomach still twisting from the daring move she made—lightly biting his lip before she pulled away.

     She went downstairs to get something to eat, made herself some toast as Cap sipped groggily from a ceramic mug. Then she waited for him to call her back up.

     When he did, she ran upstairs to find him tangled in a t-shirt that he’d tried to put on in her absence. His cane was leaned up against the side of the bed and he’d already struggled into a pair of jeans, though the zipper was undone. His arm was through the head hole and his other one was seemingly pinned against his side. She laughed.

     “I seem to have gotten myself into a predicament,” said Peeta.

     Katniss went over and helped him put it on right, then pointed out that his fly was unzipped, which made him blush brightly. Then, she took his face in her hands and stood over him, grinning.

     “Peeta,” she said. “I’m going to kiss you again. Don’t get too excited.”

     “But you’re so hot,” he said, reeling her in, sliding his hands around her waist and back. She laughed again, and so did he, and she thought that besides Prim’s, it was probably the greatest laugh she’d ever heard.

     ****

When Katniss had to leave, Peeta wrapped himself tightly around her and buried his face in her hair. He had never been this close to a girl before, besides Delly or his mom, of course, and it was so extremely pleasant, with every curve of her pressed into every curve of him—except without the awkwardness of before. He remembered when he’d been complaining to himself about bodily betrayals and realized that now, he actually had seen the worst.

     And Katniss hadn’t really given a shit.

     She smelled faintly of shampoo and like the soap in the bathroom, since she’d had to use it when she ran off to it just a few minutes ago. Then she’d come back to kiss him goodbye.

      “Nooooo,” he groaned, “Doooonn’t.”

     “I have to,” she said woefully, pulling herself back so she could look him in the eye. “But I’ll come back, okay?”

     “Promise?”

     Katniss smiled and nodded, and then she kissed him softly. He clung to her just a moment longer before finally allowing her to untangle herself. She was lithe and graceful as she lifted herself from the bed and swept her shoes up in one hand, walking towards the door. Her hips swung only slightly and her feet slid against the carpet more than she lifted them, but despite that, he was hypnotized.

     Not just by her walk, but by her. Completely.

     “Hey, by the way,” she called over her shoulder, smirking but with a tone of seriousness in her voice. His ears perked up and he pushed himself up onto his elbows. “There’s something I need you to remember.”

     “What?” he asked, brought back into reality by the way she pressed her lips together. They seemed reluctant to form the words she wanted to say.

     “Remember that I forgot to say something this morning,” she said finally, and then turned away. As she left, with her back to him, she finished, “It was that I love you back.”

     And then she was gone, and he could hear her walking down the stairs with her shuffling walk. He fell back against his pillows and absorbed her words, and it took a moment before the sheer joy he felt set in. He grinned at the ceiling and turned his head to see if his pillow still smelled like her, and he limped to the window to look out and watch her drive away in her Circus van. He felt aloft, despite his feet being firmly planted on the ground, all three of them if you included his cane. He felt weightless, despite the painful reminder every time his leg ached and protested, that he actually weighed quite a bit.

     But _she loved him_. She had said that she loved him back, something he’d never thought he’d hear. Katniss, a piece of a fantasy that broke just the other day, had separated herself from it. She wasn’t a piece of a fantasy anymore—she was the dream itself. Not a dream of a girl who’d never go for a boy like Peeta, but a dream all the same.

     A dream that he could be with her, hear her say those words again, know her as well as he could before the Circus packed up and faded away. He had roughly eight days left, and he’d make the most of each one. Once his damn leg stopped hurting enough, that is.


	12. Magic and Fireworks

**Chapter Eleven: Magic and Fireworks**

 

It happened like this.

 

**The rest of Thursday:**

She did come back to his house, but five minutes later than she’d planned. In those five minutes, Peeta realized how important it was that she kept that promise to come back.

     He’d made her promise because he’d been afraid she’d leave again, and he didn’t know if he could take that. He’d made her promise because he wanted to be sure.

     And she did. She was just late. They kissed and she had dinner with his family and it was so, so beautiful to have her back. They had lost a day, but they hadn’t lost the basis of what they had: trust, love, and varying degrees of hopefulness.

     And for the seven days they had left, they would keep it all.

 

**Friday:**

Friday brought French toast in the Mellark household. It had been an uninterrupted tradition for as long as Peeta could remember—it didn’t matter if Mom was in a bad mood or if they’d run out of bread, because they would leave her out or they would get more bread. Even Pancake Tuesday was not held in such high regard as French Toast Friday.

     Of course, Peeta invited Katniss over for breakfast that morning. She sat with Delly on one side and him on the other, and he’d watched as his two favorite girls in the world collaborated to make fun of all three of the Mellark brothers.

      After, he and Katniss went back to the Circus, where she’d used her remaining free time before the show to kiss him behind the animal tent where they’d first met, so many years ago.

     He watched the show from the front row and clapped extra hard for her when she danced, hoping he could express just how much he loved to watch her, and how it felt like she’d spun them into another place where it was only them. A couple of kids in the heat of a summer romance, brought to a place where they could feel like more.

     He ducked backstage after the finale, searching out her dressing room and tugging gently on the curtain so she knew he was there. She pulled him inside and embraced him, and then offered to answer any questions he had about the inner workings of the beloved Circus of Fire.

     He asked about her dress, and she showed him the little mechanisms that were sewn right in, triggered when she danced to light the fake flames and eventually change the hue of the fabric.

     He asked her about the birds, if she actually liked them much, and she said they were kind of annoying but showed them to him anyway. He tried to pet one, and it bit him, mimicking his shocked yelp as he leapt back. Peeta was glad that Katniss had had a band-aid in her pocket.

     He asked her if she was sure she loved him, and she kissed him. She asked him a different question, her mouth tilted in a smile, “Is that proof enough for you?”

     He asked her about Finnick’s magic tricks, which was the one question she couldn’t answer.

    

It was the fourth of July. Katniss was definitely a fan of the fourth of July.

     America wasn’t the greatest country it could be, but it wasn’t as bad as some places. The celebration of the country wasn’t really even why she liked it so much. No, Katniss associated Independence Day with sitting barefoot in empty bleachers eating watermelon or corn on the cob. She associated it with little carnivals and the red stars she added to her makeup during the show. She associated it with running out to watch the fireworks show that Beetee had put together. Her dad used to help, but now Gale did, and Finnick too with his magicky skills.

     When she’d gone to breakfast, she’d passed them on her way to the car. They were sitting out in the dewy summer morning with plans laid out on a picnic table, Finnick and Gale pushing each other’s buttons and arguing as Beetee actually got shit done. She’d laughed. She always did.

     At breakfast, over the French toast, she learned about the Mellarks’ traditional Fourth of July cook out and that it would be in their backyard later that evening. Luckily, there was only a little overlap between her last show of the night and the cook out, and then she could drag Peeta back to the fairgrounds for the fireworks. Apparently, Panem City had opted to just let the Circus take over the pyrotechnic portion of Independence Day celebrations, which was a good choice.

     It was, after all, the Circus of Fire.

     After spending much of the day wandering around the Circus with Peeta, she had another show before she could join him at his house for that cook out. Makeup application alone seemed to drag on and on, and then sitting through the show felt like forever. She was glad when she got out there, had some time to shine, and then did the finale before hustling to change.

     She wore the most patriotic top she owned, the red, white, and blue tie-dye tee over her regular old shorts. She left on the stars in her makeup and wiped away her smoky eyes. And then she went, cooking out with the Mellarks.

     As the sun went down, they lit sparklers and ran around the yard with them. Peeta had painted his brother’s faces with stars and stripes. (Stars for Cap, stripes for Walden.)

     They all commuted to the fairgrounds next, where people inside the circus sat at tables and on lawn chairs in the grass and people outside sat on the hoods of their cars or in the beds of their trucks. Katniss and Peeta left his family behind, at some random table, and ran off to the back of the Circus where the other performers had collected (besides Finnick and Gale).  Annie was in the back of Finnick’s truck with Johanna, and Rue and Prim were sitting in matching folding lawn chairs.

     Katniss and Peeta fit right in on a blanket nearby. Then the explosions started.

     There were a number of spectacular sights that night, but Katniss’s favorite was the explosion of blue in the sky that shaped itself into the form of a mockingjay with a splash of red where its heart would be. That was the one that made her turn to Peeta and kiss him, a cacophony of sound in her ears and in her heart all at once.

 

**Saturday:**

Between shows, they went to the pool.

     Katniss wore a one-piece, black and slimming, and her jean shorts over it. Peeta’s swim trunks were old and faded with tropical flowers and leaves on them, and he’d worn a plain white shirt.  Delly appeared wearing a skirt style bottom with a green top that lent proper support to her bust. She also had huge sunglasses and a flowy floral cover-up that brushed the ground when she walked, and Katniss laughed.

     At the entrance they had to separate, having to walk through their respective locker rooms in order to access the pool. Peeta trudged in one direction, and Delly and Katniss walked arm-in-arm through the locker room. They looked like the best of friends.

      They could be, if Katniss was more than just-passing-through. She really got why Peeta liked Delly—she was nuts, clearly, but also kind of sweet.

     They emerged back into the sunlight to find that Peeta had picked a spot for them and was already sitting there shirtless, rubbing sunblock onto his face. There was a splotch of white on his nose that he’d missed, and Katniss rubbed it in for him. They ended up doing each other’s shoulders and backs too, while Delly just reclined in one of the chairs saying, “This is why you sunblock in advance.”

     Over the course of their time there, there were diving competitions that Delly judged from the sidelines. There were splash wars that she actually participated in—Katniss got her good at one point, sending a huge wave over her blond head, and felt very triumphant afterwards. They used the slides and played with the bubbling geysers and just enjoyed themselves like they were little kids again before it was time to go.

     In parting, Peeta took Katniss into his arms and kissed her on the forehead. After today, they had five days left.

 

**Sunday:**

On Sunday, Katniss had three shows and barely any free time, because she had a meeting with her stylist and a movie she’d promised to take Prim to.

     Peeta was flattered when she offered to take him with, but declined the offer anyway, because he was busy himself. As soon as he was off work, he borrowed the family car and drove across town to the sprawling apartment complex of Aspen Oaks, ridiculous in name because it featured not one type of tree, but _two._

     With the unit number he was looking for scrawled on the back of his hand, Peeta ventured onto the premises. There were several actual buildings with a green space between and around them. Trees and a pond and a bridge with ducks quacking under it as Peeta passed over. He spotted a bench in the shade and wondered if his mother ever came down here to read in the peacefulness of it.

     He was let in on a first buzz, and he wondered if she was always so easy to let people in. He reasoned that it couldn’t always be for her, and that she had enough sense not to actually allow people she didn’t know into her apartment. But he still worried about her, somewhere inside him, because even after everything she was still the same Mommy who’d held him when he woke up screaming.

     Peeta dragged himself up the stairs to her floor, and then down the hall to the unit that 4matched his hand. He was reluctant to knock, because he hadn’t let her know he was coming and he didn’t want to impose. He was also reluctant because he hadn’t seen her in a month and had talked to her less than Dad had.

     But he eventually did tap his knuckles against her door and then stand back, waiting. He eventually did listen for her footsteps and then look around, wondering if he should take the opportunity to bail while he still could. He didn’t. He just waited.

     “Peeta?” she asked as soon as she opened the door. She seemed honestly confused.

     “Did you honestly think I would forget, Mom?” he asked, also confused. The boys all had great memories, and she knew that—after all, they’d gotten it from her. He figured Walden and Cap had sent her texts already or even called, but Peeta had shown up at her door.

     “No,” she finally answered.

     Peeta tried to smile, but he thought it probably seemed strained. “Happy birthday, Mom,” he said, and she offered a nod before opening the door wider to let him in.

     Once the door was shut behind him, Peeta’s mother wrapped him in a hug and thanked him.

     For the rest of his visit, they played card games. Peeta kept winning.

 

**Monday:**

He tugged twice on the curtains of her dressing room with one hand, the other clutching a box in sweaty fingers. He was terrified that he’d drop it and ruin everything, even on the way here when it was sitting in his lap with both hands securing it. The contents had rattled with the movement of the bus, but he hadn’t let it fall.

     Other bakery boxes were pink or white, but Panem City Bakery had a wide variety of colors. Peeta had picked the light green one with the bakery’s name on the top in a darker shade. He knew she loved green.

     Katniss’s hand reached through the curtains and latched onto his wrist, and she pulled him forward so that he stumbled right into her little alcove. He was about to take his usual seat in the chair when he noticed, and damn near dropped the box for real.

     She was wearing a dress today. It had a bow in the front, at her waist, and was a shade of blue that matched his eyes. Delly had a pink one like that.

     But that wasn’t what he noticed.

     What he noticed was that the zipper in the back was undone. All the way. He could see the edge of her panties and the clasps of her bra, and at the sight his eyes were practically popping out of his head. He was frozen there, staring, and though he told himself to move and look away, he couldn’t do it. 

     She was saying something. What was she saying?  

     He felt heat in his face and stammered, “Wha..wha…what?”

     Katniss looked over her shoulder at him. “What’s the box for?” she asked.

     “Uh. Um. You.” Peeta put the box on the chair. “Sorry. I didn’t hear what you said. When I. Um. Came in.”

     “Oh! I asked if you could help me with the zipper. I can’t get it myself,” she said, and then she turned back around and held her hair out of the way. Peeta stepped forward, nodding slowly, his fingers trembling as he tried to hold onto the zipper.  He couldn’t quite get it, he was so shaky. Eventually, he did manage to grip the zipper pull and drag it up her back, but it caught about halfway.

     “Shit fuck,” he hissed, stepping back. “The fucking thing won’t zip.”

     “Peeta…” Katniss turned around and reached for him. “It’s okay, it’s just caught.”

     “I’m sorry. I’m a lame excuse for a boyfriend,” he said, feeling deflated. He’d come to surprise her with her favorite pastry and had ended up ogling her in a state of undress and fucking up her zipper. “I didn’t even hear you the first time because I was distracted by your underwear. A decent person would’ve averted his eyes.”

     “My underwear?” she asked.

     He nodded and looked over her shoulder, at where her costume was hung, or at the wall of the tent. Just not at her. Katniss, however, didn’t mind that. She just laughed awkwardly.

     “Um. Sorry,” she said. “But that doesn’t make you lame. Just. You’re a teenage boy, why would I expect anything different?”

     Peeta shrugged. She reached for him again, taking his hands in hers and kissing his palms. And then she wrapped her arms around his neck, and if he didn’t meet her halfway, she would’ve had to stand on her toes to kiss him. But he leaned in for her, catching her waist with his hands and leaving them there, as gentlemanly as he could be.

     She pulled back. “What’s in the box?”

     “Cheese buns,” said Peeta, and then he captured her lips again.

     After some kissing, he finished zipping up the back of her dress and they went for a walk around the town. They shared the box of cheese buns. And since Katniss didn’t have another show for a while, they went to his house and had some alone time in his bedroom, just the two of them.

     She let him touch her boobs. On the outside of her dress, of course, but they still felt nice and along with all the making out they did, it aroused him rather thoroughly and Katniss eventually had to step out of the room.

     She’d have to go back to the Circus for her show soon, he thought as she walked out. She’d have to leave with the Circus soon, he also thought. It was disheartening to say the least.

     After today, they’d only have seventy-two hours. After today, it would be three days until she was gone.

 

**Tuesday:**

In the morning, there were pancakes.

     In the afternoon, Katniss had a fight with Gale about something or other and came running to Peeta, and they watched _The Lion King_ together in Walden’s bean bag chairs.

     In the evening, they went to dinner at the diner again. Peeta drove her back to the fairgrounds, and they sat in the arena under the stars until midnight, kissing and laughing and telling stories until they were too tired to go two minutes without yawning.

     “I’m going to miss you,” she mumbled to him when he dropped her off at her RV. He nodded and kissed her forehead, but she wasn’t so tired that she missed the way his entire body went rigid when she said it. She watched him limp away and thought that maybe, she shouldn’t have said that, since it reminded him of the fact that they didn’t have forever.

     But it was the truth, all the same.

 

**Wednesday:**

The Circus was closed on Wednesday morning due to the unfortunate weather conditions. It was raining cats and dogs, an expression that Peeta’s father used when he’d woken him that morning to ask some unimportant question about a recipe. It just reminded Peeta of the song “It’s Raining Men” which to him, was a disturbing image.

     If it was raining men, what would be done with all the men that were already on the ground? Had they evaporated and become clouds, as water droplets do? Or if they were being born right from the clouds, fully grown, would they not be naked?

     Peeta shuddered as he sloshed through puddles on his way to the bus stop. The Circus might’ve been closed, but he wasn’t headed to the fairgrounds for the Circus. He was going for the girl.

     When he arrived, he found that the fields were all muddy and the front entrance was chained, so he had to duck under, which almost led to him falling over into a puddle. Again. Peeta made his way through the fairgrounds to where he knew Katniss and Prim’s RV was parked, his shoes growing muddier and his hair growing wetter by the second. He knocked on the door and waited, listening as Katniss moved around inside.

     She opened the door in a pair of shorts and the same Aztec printed tank top that she had been wearing when she kissed him for the first time. If he weren’t sopping wet, standing in the rain, he would’ve just grabbed her and kissed her just because that top reminded him of that moment. Despite it being in a smelly, gross fairgrounds men’s room, their first kiss was something not too far off from magic.

     Having met Finnick, and having actually managed to get the girl, Peeta was starting to see why people believed that magic was real. In fact, he thought maybe that he believed it himself.

     “Hello, you,” said Katniss. Peeta grinned.

     “Hello, you,” he said back, pushing his sopping wet hair out of his face.

     Katniss laughed, the snorting laugh that he so loved, and turned to run back up into her RV. She motioned form him to wait right where he was as she vanished into the mobile home, and he could hear her footsteps over the pounding of the rain on the metal. The RV shook as she ran around inside it, but Peeta stood still, waiting.

     Then she was back, wearing a pair of rubber rain boots and jumping down from the RV, right into his arms. And then she pulled away, twirling out into the rain, her boots disrupting puddles of mud that splattered when she stepped into them.

     “Peeta Mellark,” she said, “Have you ever been kissed in the rain?”

     “No,” he laughed. “Remember, I’ve only ever been kissed by you.”

     “Perhaps in another life, I kissed you in the rain,” she mused. And then she hopped over to him, which splashed mud onto his legs. She pushed his dripping hair back out of his eyes and smiled. “So you can’t really know if you have or have not had this particular experience.”

     “You believe in that? Reincarnation and past lives?” he asked her. She shrugged and nodded.

     “The symbol of the Circus wasn’t always a mockingjay,” she said. “I don’t know if you remember, but at one point it was a phoenix rising from the ashes—a universal symbol of rebirth. My dad explained it to me when I was little, and I just really liked the idea, you know? That we can always come back with a fresh start, as someone new.”

     “What if we did meet in another life?” Peeta asked. Katniss chuckled and slid her hands up through his curls. “What if that’s why we get along so easily, and fell in love so quickly?”

     He wondered if she heard the tone of sorrow in his voice, for admitting that they’d fallen in love quickly directly connected to the fact that they’d never had much time in the first place. And now, as the second to last day hovered in the air and made everything taste like rain, it made him sadder than ever.

     But Katniss still smiled, and then leaned in to kiss him.

      “Now, in this life, you’ve been kissed in the rain. By me,” she said, pulling back. “I wanted to be your first for that one, too.”

     His first crush, his first love, his first kiss and eventually his first heartbreak.

      He didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to think about how close it was, about how they were living in the darkening shadow of her departure. It reached for them with icy fingers and breathed down their necks, easily mistaken as the chill that was brought with the rain. He didn’t want to think about empty fairgrounds or the way the Circus vans would look as they parted, peeling away from Panem City.

     So he spun her around and kissed her again.

     “Now my second,” he said, and then their mouths slid together one more time. Rain fell down around them, rippling in muddy puddles and against the tops of the tents. “And my third.”

     “I love you, Peeta,” she whispered against his lips, and then she laughed and ran off into the rain. He chased her, and the future chased him.

 

**Thursday:**

It was the last day. The future, with its cold and reaching fingers, had caught up.


	13. With a Bang

**Chapter Twelve: With a Bang**

 

The drying spots of puddles were sprinkled along the sidewalk and the grass hadn’t looked so alive since the very beginning of the summer, when it was practically still spring. A breeze shivered through the trees outside and through the screen of Peeta’s window as he stood there, watching for the black Circus van that would soon be turning onto his street.

     Soon enough, it did, sliding up into the driveway and unloading the lone driver onto his front lawn.

      Katniss was wearing her green shoes and a pair of brown shorts that barely reached the middle of her thigh. Her Gryffindor t-shirt was loose-fitting and her hair was pulled back into a messy bun instead of her usual braid. She was totally a Gryffindor, he thought.

      He called to her from the window, “Wait there!”

     She tilted her head back, smiling up at him and waving before he turned away from the window and ran towards the steps. He wished he could take them two at a time without injuring himself, but he couldn’t, so he just conquered them as quickly as he could and tore through the house to meet her outside.

     Katniss stood right on the path where he’d told her to stay. He motioned for her to join him on the screen porch. She hopped up the steps and pulled open its creaky door.

     “Good morning,” said Katniss, and he reached for her. He pulled her forward onto the porch, sliding one arm around her and cupping her face with the other hand, kissing her good morning instead of saying that.

      He never would’ve thought he’d be able to do that. He never would’ve thought he’d be able to score a girl like her, much less greet her with a kiss, or hold her without feeling shy about it.

     In a few hours he’d have to let go. He felt that chill he had the day before, despite the way the sun beat down through the clouds and chased away the rain. Goodbye didn’t ride on raindrops or on a cold summer breeze. It rode on passing time, and it was getting closer and closer.

     Much too soon, goodbye wouldn’t be in the future anymore. It would be in the present. And then, it would be in the past.

     He had mere hours left to love her.

 ****

Katniss wouldn’t let him leave her side. The farthest he was from her was when she changed, or when one of them had to use the restroom. She didn’t need him nearby at every second, but she wanted him there. She wanted him standing outside her dressing room, and she wanted him waiting for her backstage as she twirled around in her flames.

     She wanted him to stay with her for today, because she couldn’t stay with him for tomorrow.

     It was too fast.

     It was a beautiful day, with a few wispy clouds above that reminded her of cotton candy. She and Peeta shared some, devouring the entire portion and then pressing their sugar-laced hands together. Palm-to-palm, finger-to-finger, his skin sticking to hers.

     They each washed it off in the appropriate bathrooms, and then proceeded to wander the fairgrounds together, playing the games and watching the passersby before it was time for another performance.

     Katniss sat obediently in a makeup chair, and Peeta looked on as the artist painted her face. He gave her a big grin and two thumbs up when it was finished, and she had to put on her dress.

    He was there when she and Gale went out to shoot flaming arrows, and he was in the same place when she came back to board her chariot. When she held hands with Gale during the finale, she found herself wishing that it was Peeta’s hand she’d be holding every day instead of his.

     When it was over, they left the fairgrounds in one of the less conspicuous Circus vehicles. They picked up a box of cheese buns and drove to the park near the center of town. It had a yellow swing set and a matching slide, and a lot of open field where a group of kids was playing soccer.

     Katniss sat on the blue swing, which was a little bit higher off the ground than the red one beside it, where Peeta perched with the bakery box on his lap. It was orange, this time, his favorite color instead of hers.

     They sat there and they ate, and then when the pastries were gone, they swung.

      She could swing higher than he could, which wasn’t a surprise, really.

     “Peeta,” she said, as he swung forward and she swung back. He twisted his head to look at her, his hair flopping and catching the sunlight, his eyes wide and bright and happy. “Peeta, I win!”

     He stopped swinging and looked at her. “I win, actually.”

     “What?” asked Katniss. She slowed her swing and skidded her shoes through the woodchips, stopping beside him. “You know I went higher.”

     Peeta smiled softly and shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I’m the winner, because I won you.”

     Oh God, how she wanted to stay and love him for that. She wanted to stay and be the one to cut his hair when it grew too long, and to stay with him when he couldn’t walk. She wanted to be more than the eleven day dream that she was.

     But she would leave tomorrow, bright and early, and he would stay in Panem City.

     There was no choice.

 ****

When the sun crept closer and closer to the horizon, the colors of sunset shooting through the sky before it actually disappeared, they walked back through the front gates of the Circus.

     It was still hopping with circus goers, who watched in excitement as the torches leapt to life around them. Finnick was striding around on the paths, in his flaming suit and top hat, making a show of it. He gestured to every torch that lit, and changed its color with a flourish of his hand, from red to blue to a bright pink hue that matched some random girl’s hair.

     Katniss and Peeta shouldered past him and said hello, and he shot them with a hail of blue sparks.

     “You beautiful lovebirds!” he called after them as they ran off, and they could still hear him laughing even when they couldn’t see him anymore.

     They ran into Annie and Johanna at Sae’s concessions stand—Annie hugged both of them as Johanna looked on, smiling.

     They ran into Prim, who was playing with sparklers with Rue outside the animal tent.

     “Hey, Katniss, can I spend the night at the motel?” asked Prim as they passed. Katniss smiled at her sister—the little girl who wasn’t really even a little girl anymore.

      “No,” she said, jokingly. But she strode over anyway and wrapped Prim in a hug, once her sparklers had burned out. “Of course you can. Be good.”

     She kissed the top of her sister’s head and then rejoined Peeta on the path. He caught her hand in his and they continued on. When they got to the RV, she let him in without hesitation, going in after him and shutting the door behind her. After she locked up, she turned to find Peeta standing there and looking around with genuine interest.

  “This is where you live, then? All the time?” he asked. Katniss nodded

     “We have a house up north, near Boston. We never use it,” said Katniss. She dropped her keys on the faux marble countertop and went to sit at the table. Peeta began to explore, and she watched from the sidelines as quarterback-shaped boy maneuvered his way around the compact space, bumping into doorways and the corners of the counters.

     “Wait, how does this work?” he asked curiously as he poked his head into the tiny bathroom. “Do you and Prim share a bed?”

     “No. The couch pulls out. It’s very comfortable and Prim prefers it to the actual bed,” she explained.

     “Oh.”

    The way she watched him concerned her. She watched him like he was a priceless artifact that she was guarding, or like an important paper about to be blown away in the wind. She watched him like she was afraid of losing him, because she really, really was. She wasn’t thinking that Peeta was her soul mate or anything, but she was in love with him, and she did want to keep him for as long as she could.

      But she was leaving. Tomorrow, the Circus would be all packed up and driving away in a procession of trucks and trailers, both labeled and unlabeled. It was somewhere in West Virginia next, and then into the north before the seasons changed…Katniss was not much of a crier, but she felt tears prickling in her eyes when she thought about all the distance that it would put between her and Peeta. They hadn’t had much time, and chances were that they weren’t going to last after she was gone, not really.

     “Peeta…” she murmured, and he turned. At the sight of her tears he frowned, stumbling forward a couple of steps and wrapping her in a warm embrace. Of course he stumbled, he was the least graceful person she’d ever met, and she loved that. She buried her hand in his hair and her face in the crook of his neck. “Peeta, I don’t want to leave you.”

      “I know,” he whispered soothingly, rubbing his hand up her back. “I know, my love…but your life is with the Circus, and mine is here in this monotony. We can’t change where we come from.”

     “I love you,” she said, pulling back and looking up at his face. is hih

 His eyelids fluttered closed and a tear ran down his cheek, and the only thing she could think to do was wipe it away with her thumb. “Peeta, I love you.”

     “I love you too,” he said, kissing her. He held her by the waist and kissed her gently, pushing back her hair and breathing into her mouth. But Katniss knew he was holding back, and so she kissed him differently.

      She kissed him in a way she was sure would burn down the barriers that kept his passion contained, trying to reach it and release it, because she wanted to feel something more than just the bittersweetness of this kiss in the middle of the floor. She wanted to feel his hands in new places, and his mouth in newer ones, and she wanted to pull him close and say his name in a way that wasn’t mournful or simply _endearing_. 

     Katniss Everdeen had never made love before, and now she wanted more than anything to seize the chance before it passed. They were alone, and they had no time but now.

     “Katniss,” Peeta gasped between the searing kisses he was receiving, and she moved to press her mouth to his jawline and the contours of his throat. “What are you doing?” Without answering, she started walking backwards, towards the bedroom, pulling him with her by the bottom hem of his t-shirt. He didn’t resist, but stammered, “Kat..Katniss? I’m serious.”

     “Shh.”

     “No,” he said, but he let her pull him into the room and followed her as far as the bed that was covered in fluffy pillows and tangled sheets. “I’m not going to be quiet. Tell me what you want.”

     She sighed. He was going to make her say it, was he? Well, she was going to have to phrase it in the best way possible, a way that would persuade him.

     “I want this night with you, before I go…I want to have you this way, before the chance is gone.” She closed her eyes, wincing at the way she stumbled over the words. “That sounded better in my head, but the fact of the matter is that I love you and if there’s anyone to make love to, it’s you.”

     “Katniss…”

      She opened her eyes to look at him, and her mouth to tell him that he didn’t have to. She wasn’t that kind of person, so persistent that she’d practically bully him into saying yes. She wanted it to be important to him, too.

     He kissed her roughly before she could say anything else, and he sat at the edge of the bed and guided her down onto his lap. Katniss felt something pleasant stir within her as she straddled him, their mouths melding and their bodies pressed closely together. Heat flourished between them, so Peeta helped her remove his shirt, and a moment later stuck his hands up hers.

     “I love you,” he rasped. “I love you, Katniss Everdeen, and I absolutely support this idea.”

     She giggled and shifted in his lap, feeling the growing stiffness beneath her. He definitely was telling the truth, then. She smirked when he gripped her harder and pulled their mouths back together. His hand sifted through her hair and the other splayed across the flesh of her back, extremely close to the clasp of her bra. She quickly and surely pulled her shirt up over her head and gave him access to her smallish breasts, covered by an insubstantial and plain white bra that he fumbled with for a second.

      Peeta turned several shades of red when it was gone, and they were both bare-chested. He moved his hands back to her waist, as if anywhere else was a danger zone. Despite the fact that he had been the one to pull the bra away in the first place.

      “What? They’re the same boobs as before, you know, just less covered,” said Katniss.

     “But…” Peeta’s voice was barely above a whisper. His eyes were fixed on her chest.

     “This isn’t a museum. You can look _and_ touch if you want.”

     “Some museums are hands on…”

     She laughed and tipped her head forward, resting her forehead against his. He started laughing too, his entire body shaking. He leaned back with her, pulling her up the mattress with him in a shimmying motion that made them both laugh even harder for how silly it looked. And then their mouths joined again, sweet kisses punctuated with laughter. Their hands roamed, each exploring the way the other felt without a shirt. Peeta took a while to actually put his hands where she wanted them, but when he took her breasts and palmed them, she was pleased to find the feeling was worth the wait. Certainly better than when he’d cupped them through her clothes, or the rare moments when she touched them herself.

     “Is this okay?” he asked softly against her lips, rolling one nipple between his fingertips. She mumbled the affirmative against his lips and let him continue as they made out with their bodies pressed together on her bed. When Peeta flipped her over and lowered his head to pepper her collarbone with kisses, he paused and spoke again. “May I, um…” he couldn’t seem to get it out. “CanIputmymouthonyou?”

     “Yes,” she whispered, threading her fingers through his hair and pulling his head down to her chest. The hand he moved to her hip trembled slightly, and the one still at her chest squeezed a little, but she didn’t mind. His lips against her breast felt so good, and she let him stay there for what seemed like forever. He was hesitant when he changed what he did—when he went from kissing to light sucking, from the skin part to her hardened nipples, but she made sure he knew that everything he did felt fantastic.  

     “Katniss…” he said after a while, lifting his head and taking one of her hands. With his free hand, he stroked up and down her side as he looked down at her, taking in the sight with loving eyes. “Are you sure about this?”

     “Yes, of course.”

     “You do have something, right? Hidden away in one of these drawers?” he inquired. “Because this is unexpected to me and I didn’t really raid my brother’s condom stash in advance.”

     “You should always raid condom stashes. Isn’t that a rule?” said Katniss, and she pulled away to reach over and open a drawer by the side of the bed. It had her jewelry box inside, which held a mockingjay pin and various other things she’d been gifted over the years. Inside that, there was a hidden compartment that only she knew about, where she hid the things she’d filched from Gale and Finnick. Lube packets and condoms. “I was mostly curious about what it all looked like, and ended up taking more than I needed to examine, but be thankful I did.”

     He grinned at her and kissed her belly, just above her navel. “I love you.”

     “Oh, yes, you’ve said that.”

     “Because I do,” Peeta mumbled against her skin, boldly trailing his mouth down towards her waistband. “I love you.” He kissed her hip and his fingers found the little brass button of her shorts. He fiddled with it, obviously wanting to undo it but not having the nerve. Especially not without asking. The day Peeta crossed boundaries with her that he hadn’t before without asking first was the day she’d suspect that the Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a thing that was happening.

     “Go ahead,” she urged, “But don’t expect to keep your shorts on much longer, sweetheart.”

     “Ew. What did we say about _sweetheart_?” asked Peeta, bringing himself back up her body and pressing a kiss to her nose. “We don’t like it. Sounds too unmanly. And patronizing.”

     “Okay. Should I only ever call you Peeta?” she asked, smirking. Really, she wondered if she was even going to be able to call him by his name in the upcoming days, weeks, months and years. If she was going to call him by anything at all. She wondered if tonight would really be her first and last time being with him. But she kept on her smile and joked, “I guess _sexy_ is overkill.”

    “Shut up,” he said, and then he kissed her again, the way she had always wanted to be kissed. With desperation and passion and love all together, his lips demanding but his hands gentle as they held onto her. He kissed her even as he nervously undid her button and fly, and he didn’t stop kissing her when she reached for his waistband too, unbuttoning and unzipping and brazenly reaching right into the front of his pants to feel him. She was surprised at herself, but not as surprised as he was, biting her lip accidentally when she made contact. “ _Katniss._ ”

     She moved away from him then, and he groaned until he realized that she was wiggling out of her shorts and throwing them to the side. She felt a little self-conscious, sitting there before him in only her cutesy ice cream cone panties and absolutely nothing else. But Peeta had always thought she was beautiful, why would he stop thinking that now that he was seeing more of her?

     “Jesus,” he muttered, stopping and staring at her. His mouth hung open and his thumbs were tucked in the waistband of his jeans, about to pull them off. “You’re so. I can’t. Hot. No, gorgeous.”

     “Thanks.” Katniss laughed at his broken sentences. “Come on. Your turn.”

     He dropped his pants and she smiled, reaching for him again. They re-entangled themselves in one another, chest to chest, legs sliding against legs. Their mouths were searching and exploratory, and when Katniss moved to kiss Peeta’s chest and stomach and hips, he made the most adorable squeaking noises. He pulled her up for another kiss on the mouth and held her close to him with one hand on her ass, one brushing against her upper back and sliding through her hair. She could feel the lines of his body against hers, the hardness beneath his underwear pressed against her…she dared to rub herself against him, just once, before she pulled away.

     “Katniss…are you scared at all?” he asked breathlessly. “I mean, of anything?”

    “Yes,” she said softly, hooking her fingers into her panties and dropping them to the floor. He went almost cross-eyed looking at her, even though she was probably a little blurry without his glasses. She crawled up beside him, just lying there, looking at him. She waited for him to get over the fact that she was naked and meet her eyes, and it didn’t take as long as she thought it might. “I’m afraid of losing the people I love, Peeta. I’m afraid of losing you.”

     She kissed him softly, combing her fingers through his hair and holding onto him as if for dear life. He wrapped his arms around her middle and reciprocated, but she wished he would let himself touch her wherever he wanted. She knew he wouldn’t, of course, unless she explicitly gave him permission. So she did, guiding one of his hands between her legs as she pulled back and stared him in the face again.

     “You’re. You. You’re killing me, Katniss,” he said hoarsely as she helped him find the right parts and places to touch. “What do I do?”  With her hand over his, she showed him what she wanted him to do, the basics at least, and hoped he’d figure out the rest as he went on. 

     “Just like that,” she whispered, feeling the effects of his fingers rubbing their slow circles around her nub. She kissed him as he did it, weaving one hand through his hair and letting the other drop to fondle her own breast, for extra stimulation. She didn’t do this alone very often, but enough to know what was what and what felt good. There wasn’t anything weird about knowing her own body.

     “What about. Do I? Fuck,” he said, the last word being a reaction when his hand slipped just a little against her slick lips. It was foreign to him, the feeling of her, and she hoped he was taken off guard not because it was weird but because it turned him on. Katniss moved back to look him in the eye, but his face dropped down to watch what he was doing. “Oh my God.”

     “What?”

      He mumbled something nonsensical and lifted his head again. Katniss’s resolve faltered.

    “I…I…don’t know…um…what…” Peeta sputtered. Even his fumbling against her felt strangely good. “Should I?”

     “Should you what?” she asked, but then he found it, and she understood. “Oh, yes, you should.”

     He did, sliding one finger inside of her and out again, making her squirm and gasp. He figured it out by her reactions after that—there wasn’t much talking once he really got the hang of it, the rubbing and pumping and careful addition of another finger. Katniss was climbing up to some high peak that she’d never quite reached before, tension building up in her stomach and pulsing around his fingers.

     She was embarrassed by the sounds she made, but once Peeta thought to kiss her neck in time with his ministrations, she didn’t have the thought capacity to be embarrassed anymore. It was just pleasure, just the smell of Peeta and the feeling of him, and before long, his name rode out on her sigh of completion.

      He was gasping and sputtering almost as much as she was as he withdrew his hand, wiping it absently on the side of his boxers. She lay there, watching as he opened and closed his mouth, looking from her to his hand and back again. It was as if he had no words, was in a state of disbelief that he had managed to make her feel that way.

     “Peeta,” she said, and she leaned to press her forehead against his. She made her tone gentle, reaching out and caressing him with words and one hand that settled on his hip. “You should know something. It’s not that I love you, you already know that,” she paused, still catching her breath. “It’s that you’re worth so much. You think you’re some nerdy small town kid, but you’re so much more—you’re so kind, and gentle, and as much as you struggle with words…the words you say really are beautiful.”

      “Fuck.”

     She laughed. “Smartass.”

     Peeta grinned and kissed her, rolling on top of her as gracefully as he could, though he almost elbowed her in the boob. She laughed against his mouth, still, and he joined her. They were both brushed with sweat and the smell of sweet anticipation, and Katniss didn’t care that it wasn’t planned, that it wasn’t all rose-petals-and-candles. She loved him—she hadn’t loved him for a long time, or with blinding fierceness or anything, but she loved him.

      Boxers were wriggled out of and a condom wrapper was fiddled with, and Peeta dropped the lube packets on Katniss’s stomach before he could open them. She could do that part, her hands being the steady ones, slickened by the lube when she applied it to both of them.

      “Fuck, this is really happening,” said Peeta as she adjusted her position and his so that they were lined up just right. “Oh my God.”

     “Just Katniss, actually,” she said. He smiled, moving out of position to kiss her.

     “That’s the stupidest joke ever and is incredibly overdone.”

      “You love me anyway,” she said as he went back to where he was, settling between her legs and watching her hand as she found the right alignment _again_. “Okay, go.”

     “What?”

     “This is the part where we have sex, Peeta,” said Katniss. Peeta nodded then, and pressed forward, parting her folds and inching into her. He stopped when she furrowed her brow, having felt the beginning of the uncomfortable stretching that she knew would happen. “Well don’t stop!”

     “I’m not stopping!” he protested, though he had stopped. She had her hands at his shoulders, and she squeezed them to spur him on. He got the hint eventually and just went the rest of the way in, and she gasped but didn’t cry out. It was weird and it burned a little, but she figured it would only get better. “Katniss?”

     Peeta leaned down and kissed her nose.

     “It’s fine. _Go_.”

      He shifted, sliding out somewhat, and then back in. He was flushed bright red, biting his lip in pleasure, but he still had the presence of mind to trace gentle patterns over her skin as he moved. It was slow, and it took time before Katniss felt anything beyond the intense emotion, the glee of being connected with him like this.

    It was just starting to get good when Peeta came.

   “I’m sorry,” he said, unnecessarily. She shook her head, let him pull out and tie off the condom and dispose of all the other things that needed to be thrown in the garbage, like the wrappers they’d left all over the sheets. When he settled back into the bed with her, he asked, “Do you want me to help you, um, finish again?”

     Katniss shook her head again and pulled up the sheets around them. She closed her eyes and let him wrap his arms around her.

     “Another first,” he said. She smiled, though he couldn’t see.

     Yes, another first, she thought.

     Another thought she thought, but she couldn’t say: _I’m literally going out with a bang._


	14. When Love Starts to Sting

**Chapter Thirteen: When Love Starts to Sting**

His phone was still in his pocket. The pocket of his jeans, which had been kicked off the end of the bed, and it was now vibrating against the floor with a low buzz. The sound was the first thing he processed when he woke up.

      The next thing was that he was naked, and that there was a naked girl in bed with him. Katniss, fast asleep with her legs tangled in the sheets and her body mostly uncovered. Peeta let his eyes follow the curve of her shoulders, the lines of her breasts and hips. _Beautiful._ She was beautiful, and he now knew that better than anybody.

      He couldn’t say goodbye.                                                                          

     Peeta slid out of bed and hunted around for his clothes, hoping not to wake her. When he pulled on his jeans, he checked his phone—it was just after midnight, and he’d missed several calls from his father and his brothers, and one from Delly. He looked over at Katniss, who mumbled his name in her sleep and turned over in bed. There was a pang of emotion in his heart, but he forced himself to keep getting dressed. He had to get home.

       Once dressed, he found a pad of paper in her kitchen and scrawled out a note, which he tore off and put on the pillow next to her before he left.

      As he walked away from her RV, through the darkened fairgrounds, he sent out a text assuring everyone that he was okay and on his way home. He’d explain later, in varying degrees of truthfulness, depending on the person.

      Instead of heading straight to the gates, Peeta stopped by the main tent. He pushed past the flaps and headed through the shadowed tunnel that the bleachers made at the entrance, emerging into the arena. The stars twinkled above him, and he jammed his hands in his pockets as he looked at them.

      He’d probably never look up at those fake stars again, and that made them more of a novelty than the real stars. Because these stars were important to Katniss, and she’d shared them with him. She’d shared so much with him, so many memories in the space of eleven days, and he had somehow had the audacity to just leave her to wake up alone.  

      Peeta cried under the artificial starlight, sitting on the ground and burying his face in his hands, but he didn’t go back. Because he couldn’t say goodbye.

 ****

By the time Peeta woke up in the morning, in his own bed, the Circus was gone.

     He still went to the fairgrounds, feeling the emptiness of it more than he thought he would. The stinging absence of the bustling Circus, the torches, the big center tent with its fiery stripes. He closed his eyes and could still see himself with her, sitting and eating pizza, walking the arena, kissing her in the men’s room. He could still see the way she looked with her rain boots on when she kissed him under the downpour, and he could still see her face in her darkened bedroom when they were pressed together, as close as he had ever been to anyone.

      Peeta didn’t want to feel anyone else that way. For years he had pined for the idea of this girl, for some imagined relationship that he was sure would never happen. And then he’d had a taste of what she was really like, and that was so much better, but it had just been a glimpse.

     A dream that lasted eleven days, with few interruptions, was now drawing to a close.

     

 ****

When Katniss didn’t know how to drive, Mags had been the one who drove the RV from place to place. Now she did it herself, with Prim squirming in the passenger seat and propping her feet up on the dash even though Katniss told her not to.

     She was glad to be driving. It took her mind off of things a little bit, dulling the bruised feeling she’d had inside since she woke up that morning. She’d heard Prim moving around the RV, having just gotten home, and had panicked thinking that her sister would find her and Peeta in the state they’d fallen asleep in. Naked.

      But then she’d turned over to find that Peeta wasn’t there. His clothes were gone, and the only traces of him were a few blond hairs on his pillow and the evidence of their lovemaking in the garbage can. She had clung to hope that he was still in the RV, or that he was sitting outside waiting for her to come out, or even that he had just gone home and was going to swing by before she left to say goodbye.

      But he hadn’t. She didn’t even bother using Prim’s phone to text him. She’d just watched as the Circus packed up, their efficiency startling as always, and then she’d gotten into the RV and driven away in the procession of vehicles that held her family and was her home.

       She didn’t cry. She just drove.

     What she did allow was anger, clenching at her insides. After all of that, their parting was like this? She’d given over so much, and he hadn’t even said goodbye. Fucking prick. She wished he’d step on a Lego. Well, not really, but she told herself that she did. It was better to be angry than to be heartbroken.

    ****

She didn’t really let herself feel it until the first show away from Panem City.

     It was when she danced, and the crowd blurred and disappeared. She saw in her mind’s eye a blond kid with glasses and a limp, making his way to her and spinning her around, but saying nothing. And when she stopped spinning, and her dress had blackened, he was gone.

     She didn’t do the finale that time, because she’d gone straight to her RV and shucked off her dress, pulling on the Seattle t-shirt she’d been wearing that Thursday morning when she’d gone back to him. Katniss buried herself in her pillows and blankets and cried until she had to come out again, facing her responsibilities with grim determination and putting on a better show than she had in a while. Sure it looked the same to them, but to her it was full of squashed sadness and fiery anger.

      She was angry that she’d had to go, and angry that he hadn’t said goodbye, and angry that she’d let herself fall in love and get hurt and angry that she didn’t regret it at all.

     Until the finale, she just let it burn. And then she held Gale’s hand and was reduced to tears again, but she smiled through them at the audience, which roared with deafening applause. Backstage, Gale helped her down from the chariot and wrapped her in his arms. Prim came over and slid her arms around Katniss’s waist. Finnick appeared and hugged her around the shoulders, and Annie and Johanna joined in shortly.

     All of the performers huddled together around her as she sobbed into Gale’s shirt and let her makeup run all down her face.

     Her real star-crossed-lover was miles away in Panem City, probably not in the best shape, knowing him, but not bothering to contact her anyway.

 ****

July had gone, and the heat of August was beating down outside. Peeta stayed in, hunched over his computer with Facebook and Tumblr open, scrolling and messaging Delly, a half-empty cup of tea on the desk beside him. Of course, they were talking about _her_ again.

     **Text her sister’s phone** , Delly insisted. Peeta sighed and typed out a reply.

    **What would be the point?**

**You idiot.** Her answer popped onto the screen with the tone. **You fucking idiot. The point would be to let her know you still love her? To reach out to her, even as she gets farther and farther away? You do still love her, don’t you? Do you want her to lose faith in what you have? Do you want her to just leave the whole thing behind? Because she will.**

      Peeta stared blankly at the screen. Then he looked at his phone. While he sat there, Delly kept typing, and he looked up when the message alert sounded.

    **You refused to say goodbye. That doesn’t mean she won’t.**

He sat there for an hour after Delly logged off. Scrolling. Thinking about Katniss. He was always thinking about her, she was always on his mind even if it was just a little, but right now she was dominating his thoughts completely. Her lips, her smile, her laugh, her aching absence.

     He switched tabs to see one new message. It wasn’t from Delly.

     The top of the message box read _Finnick the Spectacular_ in the customary white letters of Facebook. The message itself seemed to come from Finnick’s smirking face.

     **She misses you.**

Peeta felt like his body was shutting down around him. Could he breathe? Yes, yes he could. He was also swallowing properly, and he could wiggle his fingers and toes. But it felt as though he’d fall out of his chair or spontaneously implode.

     **I miss her more than I’ve ever missed anything** , Peeta replied, hitting enter and leaning back in his chair, waiting. But Finnick didn’t say anything. The green dot next to his name disappeared, but the message box remained on the screen. So Peeta clicked on his name, hoping maybe he’d find Katniss on Finnick’s friends list. He had never asked if she had a Facebook.

     As soon as he clicked it, the message box was gone and a profile was loading. How the fuck…? The profile that loaded wasn’t Finnick’s. There was a cover photo of couple of girls running barefoot down a beach—even before he saw the name, or the profile picture, the hairstyles gave it away.

      They both wore braids in their hair.

      Katniss’s profile picture was her with a crown of wildflowers in her hair, smiling at something in the distance instead of at the camera. His heart clenched at the sight, and before he even registered what he was doing, he clicked Add Friend and ran out of the room.

      If you would’ve asked him why, he’d have no idea. He stood in the kitchen and chugged a glass of cold water, because it was hot and sweat had been rolling down his back for what seemed like ages. He walked around his living room, bumping into the couch because he kept forgetting it was there, he’d been so used to the empty space. They’d bought it at some point in July, meandering through a furniture store, four guys on a mission.

      He sat down after colliding with it for the fifth time, and then he got up again.

      Peeta then ran up the stairs and checked on his Facebook. Had she accepted the request yet? Had she seen it? Was she even online?

      No.

     The only change was that Delly was back. He told her immediately of the strange Finnick phenomenon, and together they scoured the website for him. As it turned out, Finnick didn’t actually have a Facebook. There wasn’t even any record that he’d ever sent Peeta a message. For a minute, he was sure he’d hallucinated the whole thing, but then how would he have gotten to Katniss’s page?

      **What the hell?**   Delly said, perplexed.

     **He’s a REALLY good magician apparently** , Peeta typed. **It could be real…? I don’t know.**

**Hm.**

**Hmm.**

**Is it cool if I friend her too?** Delly changed the subject, kind of. Peeta looked at his screen, checking again if she’d accept his request. She hadn’t yet. He wondered if she was purposely making him wait.

      **Yes.**

**Cool. Then I can pester her about whenever the hell she’s coming back to visit.**

_If she even wants to come back_ , Peeta thought. But he didn’t say that to Delly, since he didn’t want her to think that he “wallowing” again.

 ****

Katniss had avoided Facebook for years, but her mother had finally persuaded her to get one at the end of July. It was a way to keep in contact without having to go through Prim, she’d said, and it would be a way to keep in touch with Gale after he went away to school next year.

     He’d made that decision and taken it to Haymitch, who’d apparently had mixed feelings. On one hand he was losing a performer, but on another he was watching a kid grow up. He even agreed to pay Gale’s tuition to whatever school he got into. Katniss was over her initial distaste at the thought of him leaving, though she would miss him, she was having a lot more problems with herself.

       Which brought her back to a significant underlying reason she signed up on Facebook: she knew that Peeta had one.

      Some explanation: Katniss, for the first time since she was a little girl, was questioning the path she was on. Was the Circus really what she wanted? Or was it just the only thing she knew how to want? Sure, her fling with Peeta had been fleeting, but it had opened her eyes to a different kind of life, and a different kind of family. She’d always known there was more, but she’d never really witnessed it.

    Though everything did go right back to him. When she thought too far ahead, to marriage and house-buying and things, her mind got fuzzy and she couldn’t picture any of it with anyone in particular. But when she thought about what she was missing, like prom and graduation and other things twelfth graders of actual schools got to do, she always thought about doing them with Peeta.

     Once she was on the site, she added people from the Circus and people she remembered from her year in regular school and even the Dutch lover that Cinna had had a few years ago, Christiaan, because she remembered he would sit in during some of her fittings and sneak her chocolate coins from Walgreens when Cinna wasn’t looking. But she didn’t add Peeta.

      She visited his profile more often than she would’ve liked to admit, seeing the cover photo of him and Delly and Cap after being face-painted, and the profile picture of him smiling at the ground as if the photographer had taken it without him realizing. So many other people had mirror selfies, or weird-face selfies, but Peeta had a picture that really captured him. The sun shone through his hair and his cheeks were reddened, and she thought it was perfect. But still, she didn’t add him. She couldn’t find the courage to.

      As it turned out, she didn’t have to.

     He did it first.

     She had just gotten done with an afternoon show and had set up a lawn chair in front of her RV, so she could sit outside in the shade of the hulking vehicle and play around on the laptop. She opened this online game she played and logged out of Prim’s Facebook for her before logging into her own.

     She’d been getting friend requests quite a bit. People who thought she was good-looking, or had an interesting name, or if they recognized her from the Circus, and she declined everyone she didn’t know. So when she noticed that there were four people who’d friended her since she’d last been online, it wasn’t a surprise.

**Mags Odair**

Why did Finnick let his grandmother have a Facebook? Katniss confirmed her as a friend anyway, but she was laughing as she did it.

**Annabelle Trinket**

     That would be Effie’s teenage daughter that was about Katniss’s age. They’d played together as little girls, though she lived with her grandparents now while her mom travelled with the Circus. Katniss looked at her profile picture and thought about Effie’s naturally blond hair (though she didn’t keep it that way) and then about Haymitch’s greying dark curls.

     Annabelle had a lot of dark, curly hair. No wonder there were rumors about Effie and Haymitch once having a thing. The girl looked more like Haymitch than like her mom.

**Delly Ann Cartwright**

What? Katniss stopped cold when she saw the third request on the list. If Delly had found her profile, then who else had…?  She moved down the list without clicking confirm.

**Peeta Mellark**

    Katniss clicked it right away, then went back up to accept Delly. Her stomach twisted and untwisted, debating whether to send either of them a message. She switched tabs and played her game for a few minutes.

     And then it was a few hours. And then she had another show.

     She didn’t contact Peeta that day, or that week, or even that month. Every time she opened her Facebook, she almost did, and every time she picked up Prim’s phone she almost texted or called.

 ****

In September, Peeta started his senior year at Panem City High. He’d already done a lot of college preparation things, but now it was really getting to him. Seniors had a lot of freedoms, but it meant that they were leaving. That everything would be changing for them sooner rather than later.

      He didn’t like the idea of change.

      He was already a shoe-in for several art schools that had seen his work in various exhibitions. Some of them even offered to pay parts of his tuition. He wasn’t worried about any of that.

     Cap had a full-ride football scholarship already, and Delly was accepted into an all-women’s college nearby. Their decisions were sent in and everything was in place, but Peeta didn’t know what he was going to do yet. By November, he was compiling lists of pros and cons about all the schools that had contacted him and he still had no idea.

      On top of it all, he was still pining for Katniss, even though it seemed like she was pretty much done concerning herself with him. If she still cared, wouldn’t she have messaged him by now?

     As he was looking at the websites of the colleges, he accidently clicked the Circus website on his favorites bar.

     The latest post mentioned a contest. He read on.

      Once he had the details, he pushed away from his desk, from the textbooks and college materials, and pocketed a wad of cash from his sock drawer. He needed a canvas and some new paints.

 ****

The new promotional art was gorgeous. They started using it right as the new year began. It was obviously done by someone who’d seen the performance a number of times, and by someone who had an eye for capturing emotion in his work.

      That was all she knew about the artist. It was a guy—Haymitch said so.

     There were three elements of the piece, but in the posters and advertisements, they’d split it up into three different works. The original painting was still with the artist, though he was apparently bringing it to Haymitch when they did a show in Maryland in a few weeks.

     On the left, the artist had captured Prim and Rue poised on the backs of their horses, and on the right he’d managed to paint the delicate forms of Annie and Johanna during their acrobatics routine.

     It was the center image that Katniss really liked. It was her, of course, perpetually the figurehead of the Circus. But it wasn’t done in a refined, realistic way—her dress was mid-transformation, a blend of reds and oranges and blues and blacks, and her arms were posed in a way she was sure she held them just about every time, with her hands open to the viewer, and her mouth was turned up into a bright smile. It was a wash of color and emotion, somehow capturing the way she lost herself in the dance every time, and it was beautiful.

     She wondered how he knew.

    She found herself stopping to look any time she passed a poster with the painting on it, ignoring the words across the top and bottom and looking at the shrunken detail. She couldn’t wait to see the original. She couldn’t wait to meet the artist.

      On her way to Maryland, she excitedly talked about it to Prim, who made fun of her and said she was falling in love with a painting instead of a person. When she said it, Katniss felt something twinge inside her; she couldn’t fall in love with someone who wasn’t Peeta, not yet. She still dreamt about him a lot, and part of her hoped that maybe, he’d show up at a show someday and she could see him again. But that probably wasn’t going to happen.

  ****

Peeta took a few days off of school to drive up to Maryland with Delly, the painting sitting in the backseat, covered with an old rocket ship sheet.

      It was nerve-wracking, knowing that he was going to see her again. What would he say? What would _she_ say? They hadn’t even spoken in since the night before she left, when they were each other’s firsts—he wondered if she was mad that he left before morning. He wondered why he hadn’t just grown a pair and contacted her himself instead of waiting for a message that never came.

     “What if…?” he started, but Delly cut him off.

     “Shut up, Mellark,” she said. She was driving, and they were at an intersection waiting for the seemingly endless stream of cars to allow them through. Delly drummed her fingers on the wheel and reached for her bottle of Green Tea, guzzling some down.

      “But I…”

     “I don’t want to hear it.”

     So he shut up. And they continued on towards the big convention center as snow fell down around them.

 ****

Katniss did the show gleefully, excited that this was the day she’d meet the guy who painted her so beautifully. She’d seen a lot of pictures and art pieces with her as the subject, but this one had more than her fancy flaming dress and rad dance moves—it had a bit of her soul in it too. She wanted to know how the artist had seen that when none of the others had.

     In her dressing room after the finale, she hurried to get all her makeup off and change into her Seattle t-shirt. This particular venue had actual dressing rooms, but instead of appreciating that, she spent as little time in it as she could and was back out in mere minutes. The backstage area was a maze of cold hallways and she had to wear a baggy zip-up hoodie with a fleece lining that she’d stolen from Gale years ago as she navigated them.

      Haymitch had set up a makeshift office in a room a few hallways away, and the door was open when she got there.

     Haymitch was standing and watching as a young blond guy propped the painting up on an easel. It was covered with an old bed sheet, and his back was to her, but she assumed he was the artist…there was something familiar about him that Katniss couldn’t quite place. That was what she focused on as he tugged the sheet away, instead of actually watching the unveiling. She watched the way he moved, the way he favored one leg, and the way his hair was mussed in the back and how it curled at the nape of his neck.

     His head turned slightly. The rim of his glasses determined it. No one else had big orange glasses like that.

     “Peeta?” she said, her voice cracking on the second syllable. He whirled around, proving her right. His eyes widened with surprise before he broke out into a grin.

      “Katniss.” He stepped forward and made it about halfway before he stopped, his burst of confidence apparently subsiding. Was he remembering that he hadn’t said goodbye? That they hadn’t spoken in months? Or was he simply remembering that Haymitch was in the room, looking on with amusement? A quiet settled over the three of them, and no one moved.

      Katniss was frozen in place. Hadn’t she just been thinking that she’d probably never see him again? And now, here he was, the mysterious artist that had captured her soul. How had she not guessed that before?

      Peeta took another step forward, and then another, and then he was just within reach. If she wanted, Katniss could reach out and touch his face, trail her fingers through his curls, which were longer now than they had been in the summer. She could pull him to her and plant a kiss on his lips, just as abruptly as she had that first time in the fairground bathroom. Her eyes slid up and down his body, and locked on his for just a second before she lifted her hand. Katniss reached and slid the pad of her thumb over his cheek, like she was checking whether or not he was real.

     She hadn’t been all that sure.

     His eyes followed her fingers as they drew back. He couldn’t have been expecting it, what she did next. She wasn’t even expecting it, really.

      Katniss’s palm made sharp contacted with his face, right where her thumb had been on his cheek. Peeta recoiled instinctively, shock coloring his features as he held a hand to his jaw. “What the fuck, Katniss?” he sputtered.

      “That was for not saying goodbye.”

     She spun on her heel and ran back down the hallway, hearing the echoes of her footsteps and his voice as he called her name, asking her please to come back. She didn’t—if he cared, he’d follow her.

     When she got back to her dressing room, she stopped and listened. And the sound was there, his voice still calling after her, his footsteps crashing around the corners that she'd already cleared.

     Of course he followed her.

     Why had she ever thought he wouldn't?


	15. Assumptions

**Chapter Fourteen: Assumptions**

 

He skidded around the corner to find her standing in the doorway of what was probably her dressing room, one hand on the doorknob. He kept running, nearly barreling right into her but stopping a breath away. His legs ached, both of them, and his lungs burned from running—she was fast, and he’d been trying so hard to keep up. 

      He reached out to the doorframe to steady himself, and he felt Katniss’s hand on his shoulder. She stared at his collarbone, unable to meet his eyes.

     “I left a note,” he coughed. “I didn’t say goodbye, I know, I’m a dick, but I left a note.”

     “What?” Katniss looked confused. Had he wheezed so much that she couldn’t decipher his words?

     “I left a note,” he repeated. “Before I left, I put a note on your pillow.”

     She slowly shook her head. _Damn_ , Peeta thought. No wonder she’d slapped him. His cheek stung and his heart clenched and he rubbed his face with both of his hands. Of course. It had fallen, or gotten pushed under the pillows, and she’d never gotten the chance to read it.

     “Where’s your RV?” he asked.

    “The parking garage…”

     Peeta turned to start walking, and then he realized that he didn’t know where that was—it was probably where they kept all the vehicles of the people holding shows or conventions, and the location of it wasn’t something he was privy to. He and Delly had parked across the street at the hotel and had then carted the painting across the street as passersby gawked at them. He turned back to Katniss, his cheeks coloring. Something flared in her eyes as she stared back at him.

     “This way,” she said finally, turning around and heading in the direction opposite the one from which they’d come. Peeta wanted her to grab his hand and lead him, but she didn’t, tucking her hands in the pockets of her hoodie and walking ahead of him. He wanted her to look back at him, to see the hand that he held at his side, waiting for her to grab on. But she didn’t.

     He had hurt her, and he felt a tightness in his chest at the thought. His footsteps dragged as he became more and more weighed down by the guilt. He had never meant to be that guy, the kind who sleeps with someone and then just leaves them to wake up alone, with no note and no later attempt at contact. He’d only been afraid to say goodbye, and after that, afraid to say hello again.

   The parking garage was just around a couple of corners, and when Katniss pushed the door open, Peeta felt the chill of it seep into his bones. It was colder than the concrete hallways, unheated and partly underground. “Here it is,” she said, holding the door open for him.

     He stepped out under the florescent lights, looking first to the one nearby that was blue and then to the one across the garage that was flickering like crazy. They gave it a creepy feel that gave him a chill, akin to the feeling he got from the actual temperature of the cavernous room. The RV was near the end on the far left, apart from the cluster of Circus vehicles, not unlike the other mobile homes that were there.

     Katniss nudged him forward with a poke to his shoulder. They walked through the parking garage, their footsteps echoing through silence.

     When they got there, she unlocked it easily and the door creaked as it opened. Peeta looked at her, and then at the door. Her gaze on him was calculating, but not cold or unwelcoming—just observant. She wanted to see what he would do. Of course, he wasn’t about to push the boundaries and walk in without permission. It was her home, after all.

     “Can I go in?” he asked. Katniss nodded, and he hopped up the steps into the RV. The interior looked just as it had that night before she left, and its familiarity almost ached. “Katniss,” he said when she came in behind him and shut the door. “I’m so sorry.”

     “I know. Why did you want to come here?”

     “One sec,” he said, holding up a finger and making his way over to her bedroom door. “Can I?”

     She hesitated this time, and then nodded slowly. Peeta felt guilty for just invading her space like this—he hardly had the right anymore, after the way they’d parted. He was almost relieved when she followed him into the bedroom to look on as his eyes swept around the room. It was almost the same as when he’d seen it, though the number of blankets had doubled and two of them had been pushed onto the floor. The trash was overflowing and there was a half-read book sitting on the nightstand.

      “Have you cleaned it since…?” he asked, and then he winced. It had sounded like he was critiquing the state of the room, which wasn’t all that clean but it wasn’t messy either. But Katniss just shook her head and remained in the doorway as he took shuffling steps around the room. “Okay.”

     Peeta didn’t take long to find the note. It was stuck in the shadowy place between the bed and  the nightstand, tucked into the crack that separated the mattress and the bedframe. He plucked it from where it’d been hiding for half the year and stood up straight again, waving it around with a slight air of triumph. Here was his proof that he hadn’t meant to hurt her.

     “I told you,” he said, unfolding it and smoothing out the wrinkles.

      She huffed, and he could see a bit of the Katniss he knew shining through, instead of the wounded and cautious one who kept looking at him like he was about to blow up. “I never said that I didn’t believe you,” she said, stepping forward and then stopping, staring at the note in his hands. “Can I read it now?”

     Peeta looked down to read it himself, first. It had been so long, he didn’t remember what it said.

 

**Katniss,**

**I don’t want to go. It’s what the Tenth Doctor said right before he regenerated into the Eleventh Doctor, and when I watched the episode I really didn’t want him to go either. I don’t want you to go; I want you to stay more than I ever wanted David Tennant’s Doctor to stay, and that’s saying a lot. But stuff happens…people have to go.**

**But Katniss, I know you as well as you could expect me to, with the short amount of time that we’ve had. I know that you love your family and the Circus above anything else, even me. I know that your favorite color is green (which is irrelevant at the moment but I wanted to show off my knowledge), and I know that you are most comfortable with the familiar. This last thing is why I’m so grateful that you allowed yourself to fall in love with me, because I swear, this falling in love thing is the biggest game-changer there is. There’s all these new feelings and shit and it’s really awesome but also can suck, and by now you know what I mean, since we’ve already hit a couple of bumps in the road. These hiccups aside, what we’ve had was incredible—the most incredible thing. I can’t just end it.**

**A month ago I would never have dreamed of this. I had met you twice and seen a few video clips of your performance and I thought I wanted you…I couldn’t have known what was coming for me. If I hadn’t walked into that ladies’ bathroom or stayed after the show when you came out to walk the arena, I never would’ve really met you, and I never would have realized what you were for real—so much better than some imaginary girl in my head. Now I have felt you, breathed you, loved you…and now I can’t say goodbye.**

**I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.**

**Love,**

**Peeta**

 

 

     “Peeta.”

      He looked up at the sound of his name, his eyes damp and stinging. He was sitting on the edge of the bed now, where he’d parked himself after the first sentence or so, without really processing what he was doing. He started to get up, opening his mouth to apologize, but all that came out were some croaky and strangled sounds that came from the back of his throat. But she shook her head, gently guiding him back with a hand on his arm as she sat beside him on her mattress.

     “It’s okay,” she murmured, and he saw that her guard had fallen. She reached up and carded her fingers through his hair, and the tightness of his chest faded away until his cheeks were dry. Katniss pressed a kiss to the side of his head. “Can I read it?” she asked again, but gently this time.

     He nodded and handed over the paper covered in his scrawling print and tearstains smearing the ink—both from the morning he wrote it and just now, when he dissolved into tears just remembering. It gathered up more as Katniss read through, her hair drawn around her face like a curtain as she looked over his words. It was one thing to make himself cry, but to make Katniss cry was something he’d never wanted, and the guilt buried itself deeper into the pit of his stomach.

      “God, oh God,” he said, his voice trembling. “I am so sorry. I should’ve stayed. It doesn’t matter that I left a note, I should have stayed and woken up with you and not bailed.” Peeta got to his feet, pacing around the small RV bedroom, wringing his hands and shoving them up through his hair. “And then I never contacted you…oh shit, I’m terrible! I am terrible. I never stopped loving you, how could I, but I didn’t bother telling you that either…I’m a fuckup oh God I have to…I’m sorry Katniss, I love you, I’m sorry…” His words were a little twisted by the sobs that were rising up in his chest. He leaned against the wall and slid down, curling into a ball when he reached the floor and holding his head in his hands. “Coming here was so stupid; I’m only making it worse”

     Silence settled in the room, though his head was full of the loudness of his thoughts. They were loud, and they were sharp and betraying like the blades that killed Caesar, and they were relentless in his mind and he felt stifled by them.

     Then he heard the creak of the mattress as Katniss stood, and the shuffling of her sneakered feet. She knelt on the floor beside him and reached for him again, like she had just moments before. Her hands in his hair, her gentle voice in his ear, asking if he was all right because that was what she was primarily worried about, not about the words that he’d said or the things that he’d done, or rather the things that he hadn’t done.

      He’d been so excited to see her, so confident, and now he had been reduced to a weepy mess on the floor of her bedroom. And he’d done it to himself—she hadn’t said a word against him, though she should’ve. He had hurt her, whether he’d meant to or not, and he deserved to feel it.

     “Peeta,” her voice roused him again, finally, and he looked up at her. He sniffled and wiped his nose with his sleeve. Her eyes were heavy, pained, but still open and gentle as she stood up and held out her hand for him. Together, they hauled him to his feet.

     “You should hate me.”

     “That is ridiculous,” said Katniss. “Absolutely ridiculous.  I stopped understanding you after ‘I’m terrible’, but I got the gist of it—and you’re wrong.”

     “I’m wrong?” he croaked. Katniss nodded and lifted her hand up to the side of his face.

     “Okay, so maybe not completely. You definitely should’ve stayed and you should’ve said goodbye,” she said. “But I forgive you for that, and I don’t think you’re terrible or anything. Let’s remember that I didn’t really bother to contact you either…so we’re both at fault for that…but I could _never_ hate you.

     “You still love me?” he whispered, and Katniss slid her hands down his arms, taking his hands in hers.

     “Of course. It’s been six months, Peeta, not six years,” she said, and he smiled, stumbling forward to completely envelop her in his embrace. He recognized the phrasing of it: he’d said something along the same lines when she’d come back to him that Thursday morning in July. Peeta buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathing her in, his thoughts calming and settling into a brand of euphoria.

      Of course she still loved him.

      Of course.

      She smelled like fake-flame induced smoke and perfume and Katniss, and he could feel her breathing and her hands as they slid comfortingly through his hair and down his back. She fit perfectly in his arms, and he never wanted to let go. He’d almost lost her twice already, and that was enough—even though he knew he had to go home eventually, he would spend as much time as he could with her now. And then they would keep in contact, over Facebook and Skype and maybe he could even convince her to get a phone of her own. He was done with the silence, the separation, and ready to move into a new era of their relationship.

     It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be far better than the alternative.

     Peeta drew back, almost untangling himself completely. Katniss looked confused and grabbed onto his hoodie, her fingers grasping the seams at his shoulders and one of the drawstrings that hung down. There was a slight tint of panic in the gray of her eyes, so he leaned closer again, pressing their foreheads together, to put her at ease.

     “I love you,” he said, and he cupped her face in his hands so he could kiss her. Katniss reciprocated in earnest, loosening her grip on his sweater and sliding her hands down, settling them on either side of his torso. Their mouths overlapped and he could taste her fruit-flavored lip balm, and it felt like everything was perfect again.

     Katniss backed up towards the bed again, tugging him with her, but Peeta only moved a couple of steps before stopping her. His hands moved down to her back to press her closer, and he kissed her harder, opening his mouth when her tongue slid against his lip. He used to think this kind of kissing was gross and slimy and not worth it, but now he didn’t see anything wrong with it at all. Kissing her like this was messy and fun and intense all at once, and once he’d gotten used to it he’d grown to love the way it felt.

      He loved the way it felt to have his lungs filled with her breath, to slide his hand along the curve of her hip, to explore different ways of kissing and touching—he’d missed this, all the times they’d curl up in his room, making out until they couldn’t anymore. And the one time that they kept going.

      Yeah, he definitely wanted to keep going this time.

     Peeta turned them around and sat on the bed, with Katniss standing between his legs. She didn’t break the kiss, though, until she had to pull away to peel away her hoodie and t-shirt, which she tossed onto the bed beside him, rumpling the pattern of the Space Needle and the stars. “I missed you,” she said as she leaned in again, pressing kisses all over his face. “I missed you, oh my God, why didn’t you think to leave it in a place where it wouldn’t fall out of sight?”

      “What?”

     “The note, Peeta, the note.”

     “Oh,” he said. Katniss grinned, stepping away from him for a second to nudge his legs back together, and then she situated herself in his lap with her legs on either side of his hips. She kissed him like that, while wrestling with his hoodie and once that was gone, his polo—which got caught on its way over his head, making Katniss laugh. God, how he’d missed the adorable sound of her laugh. 

     And when they fell back onto the bed together and she accidentally head-butted him, he almost felt like the slight pain in his skull was worth hearing that sound again. But it wasn’t really, it hurt both of them for a minute or two, even though they laughed the whole time.

      The having sex part was pretty great too, but Peeta found more significance in the moments leading up to it—in the kisses, the laughs, the whispered “I love you” every five minutes, because they couldn’t say it enough. He fell asleep with Katniss curled up against him, having drifted off moments before.

 ****

He woke up around dinner time and left a short note on the kitchen table just in case Katniss woke up while he was gone—but this one stated that he fully intended to come back. He even took the spare key that she kept in her jewelry box, something he’d remembered from that night in July.

     As he trekked across the darkened parking garage, he pulled out his cell phone to call Delly, who was right at the top of his speed-dial list, after Dad and Cap.

     “You got laid,” she said immediately upon picking up. Peeta laughed.

     “How would you know?” he asked.

     “Your text gave away everything. ‘Ran into Katniss, won’t be back out for a while,’ and then a winky face. Come on,” said Delly. She made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Do you think I’m oblivious?”

     “My hand slipped,” he told her. “The winky face was unintentional. And I meant because I was helping her find the note—she never even knew it was there.”

     “And _then_ you got laid.”

      “Well…yes, but….”

     Delly cackled into the phone as Peeta hauled open the parking garage’s door. He remembered which way they’d come from, the way to Abernathy’s office, and the way to the backstage door from there, but his leg was a little sore from before and he was wondering if there was a shortcut to take. But he wasn’t about to get lost in the maze of it all, so he headed back in the direction of Katniss’s dressing room.

     “So, I’m gonna grab my stuff from the room—and my coat from you, of course, and I was wondering if you wanted to grab a bite to eat?” he asked. He was already going through the options in his head, settling on Sae’s pizza and that he was going to have two slices—one pepperoni and the other just cheese. He knew that Delly would have the veggie pizza, and he figured that if he brought back a slice for Katniss, it would be the kind with everything on it.

     “You’re gonna stay in her RV? What about our hotel room slumber party?”

    “Delly. I have had slumber parties with you for years,” he said. It was true: if Peeta’s mom wasn’t going to be around, Delly had slept over. They’d camp out in the living room in blanket forts, from the age of seven to the age of sixteen—it truly never got old. It was different when they got older, with the gender difference and everything, even though Delly came out to the Mellarks on her fourteenth birthday. She hadn’t told her dad until her seventeenth, but he had still let her stay over for some reason unbeknownst to Peeta. The week after his mom left, they’d been lounging on his bed, and Peeta had wondered aloud about it.

     Delly had burst out laughing, and she was hard to understand, but here’s what he got from it: for years, Mr. Cartwright had allowed sleepovers because of a suspicion he had developed when Peeta was scrawny and pubescent and into painting flowers on everything—he had thought Peeta was the gay one of the two.  

     “But not in _hotel rooms_ ,” Delly persisted.

     “I know, but…”

     “You haven’t seen her in months and you kind of already slept together,” Delly finished, her tone softening. “I get it. Missing people…it kind of sucks. When you get to see them again you want to see them as much as you can, while you can.”

     Of course Delly knew that. Bonnie had gone off to college in September, since she skipped a grade somewhere along the line, and now Delly rarely got to see her in person. He’d thought himself selfish, floundering around after losing Katniss, not thinking about what they could be feeling…until Delly had told him to shut up and that he was allowed to mope if he wanted.

     He hung up the phone and they met at the stage door. Delly handed off his worn pea coat and together they walked to the hotel and back, lugging Peeta’s duffel behind them on the return trip. It was orange, like his shoes and his glasses and the sunset that was starting to blend into the city skyline.

     They got their pizza and ate at a little table by a window, which still had Christmas lights hanging above it. They talked a bit, about Katniss—she was the same, he said, and Delly laughed. There was a lot of time to change in six months, but Katniss hadn’t, and they were both glad.

     When they had finished the last bites and thrown away their plates, they hugged and said goodnight. He watched Delly disappear into the crowd of circusgoers, her blond ponytail bobbing behind her.

     Peeta bought a fresh pizza slice before heading back down to the parking garage. It was easy, with his backstage pass and the fact that some people recognized him as Katniss’s Panem City sweetheart. He ran into Gale after he passed Abernathy’s office, who surprised him with a friendly greeting hug that smelled like garlic.

     “You were the painter the whole time, weren’t you?” asked Gale. Peeta nodded. “I knew it—Catnip told me about how you liked art and stuff, and then that painting showed up with her at the center of it, and I just knew.”

       “How?” Peeta wondered.

     “Only someone who loved her could paint her like that.”

 ****

When Katniss woke up, the first thing that came to mind was that she had another show to get to. She’d already done two today—one in the morning, one this afternoon, and now there was a final evening performance scheduled at seven-thirty.  She relaxed when the clock said it was six, and that she still had plenty of time.

     “Katniss, what on earth?” came a voice from her doorway. Katniss sat up to see it was Prim, a half eaten apple in one hand, her clear blue eyes surveying the room. Katniss looked around with her, expecting the usual disarray but seeing that her room had been tidied, her garbage emptied, and her discarded clothes folded up and placed at the end of the bed. Since Prim and started spending more of her nights with Rue and Johanna in whatever lodgings they happened to be in, she only popped by the RV when she wanted to borrow some clothes or a box of macaroni and cheese. But she had been around enough to see that Katniss’s room was always messy, even messier than it had been before the summer.

     “Um,” was all Katniss could say.

     “It’s clean.”

     “Yeah…um...” she trailed off, clutching her blanket to her chest. She shivered as the cold air sunk into her skin, which was bare, every inch of it. She spotted her bra and underwear tucked between her folded shirt and jeans by her feet. Prim followed her eyes, saw the same thing, and ventured further into the room.

     “Katniss…are you naked?”

     “No.”

     Prim held up the bra. “Are you _sure_?”  

     Katniss opened her mouth to answer, but then closed it again. What was there to say? She couldn’t really deny that she was naked, since she was. She couldn’t really tell Prim, her baby sister, exactly _why_ she was naked. But she was almost fourteen and knew enough to connect the dots, especially once she found out that Peeta was in town. Peeta, who she’d slept with in both senses of the phrase, and who was nowhere to be seen.

     Katniss didn’t know whether to be glad that he wasn’t naked in front of Prim too, or to panic because he had left her to wake up alone again.

     As if on cue, the RV door creaked open and the vehicle shook as someone lumbered on, dragging something behind him. “Katniss,” he called softly. She could hear him dropping whatever load he had on the ground. “Are you awake?”

     “Wait,” Prim whispered, her eyes lighting up. “Is that who I think it is?”

     Katniss couldn’t help but smile—yes it was incredibly mortifying to be discovered in this particular position, but knowing that Peeta was back sent a rush of relief and joy through her. Prim grinned, shoving Katniss’s clothes in her direction in silent plea that she put them back on, and then she spun on her heel and walked out the door.

     “Peeta!” Katniss heard her sister say brightly, and she figured that she hugged him.

     “Did you get taller?” he asked her. Katniss put on her bra and underwear without leaving the safety and warmth of the covers. “Jesus. Katniss! Did she get taller?”

     “I don’t know!” she hollered back, struggling with her shirt. “Maybe. Prim, did you get taller?”

     Prim probably shrugged in response, and both she and Peeta laughed. The most beautiful sound. Katniss had to get up to shimmy into her jeans and hunt around for her hoodie, which Peeta seemed to have put somewhere else. She went out into the living area to join them, seeing that he’d draped it over the back of one of the dining chairs.

     Prim was standing next to Peeta in the middle of the room, her hands tucked into her pockets as she looked between him and her sister. Katniss smiled sheepishly at both of them.

     “Wow, so how long has it been?” asked Prim, though she knew already. “Like, five, six months?”

      “Yeah, something like that,” said Peeta, scratching his head and mussing his hair at the same time. “I um, came up here to drop off that painting—the promotional art?”

     “I knew it was you!”

     “It seems that everyone did except Katniss,” Peeta glanced at her, smiling shyly, but there was a glint in his eye that was almost mischievous. He’d been planning to surprise her, and he had. Sure it had gotten him slapped, but it had also gotten him laid.

      “No one thought to tell me,” said Katniss. She eyed the orange duffel bag behind him and the slice of Sae’s everything pizza on the table. “The painting is beautiful, by the way. I don’t think I told you that yet.”

        Before falling asleep, she’d told him about Prim staying with Rue more often than not, and she’d told him about Gale’s college plans, but she hadn’t gotten around to telling him that. She felt like it was even more beautiful now that she knew he’d painted it, because he’d painted it with more than a love for the Circus, but a love for her too.

     Once Peeta expressed that the pizza was for her, Katniss went to eat it at the table, and he sat across from her. While she ate, they did some catching up—she learned about the schools he was looking at, and he learned about how Prim and Rue had taken up the hobby of baton twirling, and how Haymitch was hoping they could turn it into part of their act. Prim talked about how much she hated algebra and Peeta agreed, since he was in algebra two at school, though most of his friends were in pre-calc.

     Prim eventually walked away, putting away some of her clean laundry and packing another overnight bag to take to Rue’s hotel room. She left moments later, lugging the thing behind her as she blew kisses at the both of them.

     Katniss peeked out the window to watch her sister’s retreating form. And then she turned back to Peeta, pointing at the bag near the door. “What’s that for?”

     “Shit. It was dumb to assume I could stay here, wasn’t it? It’s totally cool if I can’t,” he said, but she noticed that he wasn’t really hardcore freaking out as he had before, which was good. He was blushing profusely, though, and nervously drumming his fingers against the table. She reached over and stilled his hand, giving him a reassuring smile.

     “Stay.”

     “What?” he blinked.

     “I want you to stay,” she said. “How long?”

     “Until Sunday,” he said.

      Katniss nodded. Until Sunday was great—it was only Wednesday today. She wished he could stay forever, of course, but she would take what she could get.


	16. Dreaming

**Chapter Fifteen: Dreaming**

 

Prim rarely came back to the RV, and the only time Peeta saw her was during the shows and in the animal tent. When he expressed concern about excluding her from her own home, Katniss only laughed.

      “Don’t worry. I asked her if she was okay with you staying. She said she was glad…and that she didn’t want to be anywhere near the RV when you’re here.”

     “What?” he had asked. “Why?”

      “She said something about intercourse.”

     Peeta had then blushed furiously at the thought that Katniss’s little sister was aware of what was going on, and even though he knew they weren’t doing anything wrong, he felt as if they were setting a bad example. Also, what if she told someone? Gale? Her mother?

     “Don’t worry,” Katniss had said soothingly when she noticed the concern in his features. And then she had climbed into his lap and made his worries disappear in a _much_ more effective way.

     For all they didn’t see of Prim, Katniss and Peeta saw a lot of Delly. She had somehow gotten her hands on a backstage pass, so she could wander the halls with them and randomly show up at the RV midmorning with doughnuts and coffee. Of course, they’d been in the nude when she knocked on the door, and in his haste to put his clothes back on, Peeta slammed his toe against the nightstand and it had hurt for hours.

     Finnick seemed to split his free time. Part of it he spent with Annie, and part of it he spent bothering Peeta and Katniss. He would show up at random moments, often soundlessly, sometimes dramatically, and hang out with them for a while. He mixed teasing with praise and charm, and Peeta wondered why he’d ever thought that he didn’t like Finnick.

      Peeta ran into Gale once. Katniss was in a fitting with Cinna, Delly was seeing a movie, and Finnick was off magicking something probably. So, having nothing better to do, Peeta meandered around the parking lot and the backstage area, watching the familiar bustle of the Circus that existed even in the hours between shows. Gale was in a dressing room that he shared with Finnick, the door wide open as he blasted Fall Out Boy at a volume that was close to the highest, but not quite there yet. He had a bag of chips and was sporting quite a bit of stubble, and when Peeta paused in the doorway, he saw that there were rips in the knees of his jeans.

      “Hey,” said Peeta over the music, trying to be friendly. Gale was, after all, part of the zany immediate family that made up the cast of the Circus, despite how he seemed to isolate himself.  Peeta wasn’t sure if the guy liked him much, though he didn’t know why, but he thought that it wouldn’t hurt to try reaching out.

     “’Sup?” asked Gale.

     “Katniss is being fitted for something.”

     “Oh, yeah,” he said, nodding. He sat up, looking around for something and finding it wedged between the couch cushions. He turned down the music, despite the fabulous song that was playing, and turned back to Peeta. “They’re considering changing her dress. You know, because they’re changing the performance.”

      A change in the show? What? Peeta stared blankly, confused for all of three awkwardly silent minutes before he put two-and-two together.

     “Oh. Because you’re leaving?”

     “Yeah. I mean, unless you know anyone who can shoot flaming arrows and rock a tight black outfit,” Gale said, “they’re going to have to make it a solo act.”

   Peeta just stood there in the doorway, feeling like he was intruding.

     “I mean that was all I did. Shoot arrows and look pretty,” Gale sighed then, munching on a chip. “Why are you just standing there?”

     “Uhm,” Peeta sputtered. “I um, wasn’t invited in, so…”

     “Come in then. Sit. Have some goddamned chips—what do you take me for, some kind of inhospitable slob? My mother didn’t raise me long, but she raised me well,” said Gale, gesturing lazily for Peeta to help himself to whatever. Peeta walked in, grabbing a mini bag of Doritos from the table and sitting down on the couch with Gale. “She’d roll over in her grave if she thought I was any less than a welcoming host.”

     Katniss had told him about Gale’s family—his mother had had him when she was seventeen, and then when he was five she started trying to have more kids with donors. Six years and two late-trimester miscarriages later, Posy Hawthorne was born via C-section, taking miraculous first breaths that would’ve been even more miraculous if they didn’t come at the same time as her mother’s last ones. Gale and Posy’s aunt and uncle worked with the Circus, so that was how they became a part of a new family…even though the aunt and uncle and Posy had long since left the Circus for a normal, quiet life in Washington state. That was apparently where Gale was going to be for college.

     “Thanks man,” said Peeta.

     “Don’t mention it,” said Gale. “Back to what I was saying. The act has a story behind it, did you know? A pair of star-crossed lovers caught up in a battle to the death, where only one can win, but of course neither is really keen on letting the other die. It’s really sappy. Anyway, that’s what I was there for.” He paused and smirked at Peeta, in a friendly, teasing way. Something told him that Gale and Katniss’s relationship was like his and Delly’s—practically siblings. “But it’s Katniss’s show. She deserves all the spotlight, you know? Or someone who can dance.”

     “The guy is supposed to dance?” This was news to Peeta.

     “Yeah. The costume does the thing and everything, they just never use it for me,” Gale grimaced. “The whole dancing in fire thing freaks me out. Especially the _dancing_. I bet even you, with your bum leg, could dance better than me.”

     “I doubt it.”

     “No, really,” Gale said, getting up. He hauled Peeta to his feet by gripping his arm. “Prove it to me.”

      That was how they ended up dancing, tripping over each other’s feet and awkwardly grasping each other’s clammy hands. Katniss found them that way, and they both blushed and jumped apart, which made her laugh.

     “I’m sure there is an excellent story that led up to this,” she said, and then turned and walked down the hall. Peeta wiped his hands on his jeans and moved to follow her, not dutifully but simply because he’d rather be with her than anyone—where she was going was where he wanted to be. And the opportunity to be there was fleeting.

     Gale grabbed his arm before he could go, however.

     “With lessons, you could do it, you know,” he said in a low voice. “Provided that you learned archery too.”

     Peeta actually knew the basics of archery, and could hit like, the outside part of a target. It helped that he had a steady hand—at least, that’s what the instructor had told him when he smoked everyone in the competition at summer camp that year. A summer camp that he hadn’t even wanted to go to in the first place—Delly had had to beg him constantly for months.

     His stomach flipped and squeezed. He knew what Gale was trying to do—in fact, the second he’d walked through the door, he’d been going down that road. Why? It wasn’t about Peeta, of course—he probably thought Peeta was a great guy and all, but he didn’t know him or love him or anything. It was all about Katniss.

     Katniss, who worked with artificial flame on stage but had real fire in her. Katniss, the nurturing, the steadfast, the brave. Katniss, who had captured the hearts of everyone around her—the Circus performers, audiences across the country, and a boy from a small town with cotton candy on his fingers. Gale loved her, and wanted the best and the brightest for her. A new appreciation for Gale bloomed in Peeta’s chest, and he smiled.

     “It can’t be that difficult,” he said finally.

     Gale laughed, and so did Peeta, because he truly did think that archery was hard. But then they stopped laughing and just stared at each other, Gale’s eyes growing more intense by the second. He had the same kind of eyes that Katniss did, but they were older and heavier and more serious, where hers were full of sparks and humor and youth.

     “Promise you’ll think about it, Peeta,” said Gale. He was suddenly treating it with urgency, quite a change from the lighthearted conversation of before. “At least think about it. I would…I would just feel so much better about leaving if I was leaving her with you.”

      “With me?”

     “Of course, yeah. You love her, probably as much as any of us, though not in the same way,” he replied, and then he started digging through his chip bag again, the moment of somberness lost.

     “Of course I do,” said Peeta. “But…you don’t trust the others to take care of her…?”

      That was what Peeta was confused about, seeing as Katniss didn’t need to be taken care of. Katniss didn’t really need anyone but Prim, who was pretty much her only anchor. Everyone else was a luxury—she’d be heartbroken without them, of course, but she would survive. Gale laughed shortly.

     “It’s not that,” he said, chuckling. “Katniss takes care of herself. I mean, I don’t want her to be without both of us, I guess…I figured that my absence would be easier to deal with if you were in my place.”      

     Peeta opened his mouth to reply, but he didn’t know what to say. Before he could piece together any words, though, Katniss reappeared in the doorway. She lifted one eyebrow and looked between them.

     “Peeta, are you coming? Because I’m more than happy to give you two some space if you want to bromance or something.”

     He felt like her words rooted him back into reality.

     “Yes, yes, I’m coming,” he told her, and she smiled. He and Gale both watched as she walked off again, and then Peeta, with his thoughts now in order, turned back to Gale. “I will. Think about it. I’ll think about it.”

     And he ran off after her, to spend the rest of the afternoon cuddling and watching an anime on her laptop.

     The rest of the time he was there, whenever she fell asleep first or when he was waiting for her in her dressing room during a performance, he was thinking about it. And even with all that thinking, he still had a lot more thinking to do.

 ****

Sunday came all too quickly.

     When Katniss woke up in the morning, Peeta was not in bed with her, and his clothes were gone save for the shirt that she was wearing. “Peeta!” she called, climbing out of bed and jamming her feet into her fuzzy slippers.

     “In here!” he replied, and she followed his voice into the living room. He stood there, his jeans slung low on his hips and his bare back dotted with water from his dripping hair. She took a second to figure out what he was doing, with all his clothes strewn across the couch cushions, but then she realized. He was packing.

     “Morning,” she said, wrapping her arms around him from behind, pressing her face into the wet skin between his shoulder blades. He wiggled out of her grasp, though, and reached for a sweater that was draped over the arm of the couch. She watched as he pulled it on, and then started folding up the surrounding clothes.

     She tried not to show that it hurt. Was he pulling away again? Should she have known this would happen—they’d grow together again, but the parting would be even more disastrous the second time around?

     He glanced at her, and then froze. “Oh shit.”

     “What?”

     “I’m sorry. Good morning,” he opened his arms to her, and she walked into them. “I didn’t mean to brush you off like that, I just, I don’t want to leave but I have to and…well.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry.”

     “Don’t be,” she mumbled into his sweater. “Don’t be sorry—it’s just because you love me, after all.”

     “Yes, yes it is,” he said, and he kissed her forehead. She watched as his eyes traveled down from her face, lingering on the shirt that hung loosely around her frame and covered most of the shorts she was wearing underneath.

     “Sorry, did you want this back?” she asked, reaching for the hem. But he grabbed her hand, bringing it to his lips and pressing a kiss on her palm.

     “No. Keep it. It looks better on you.”

     Later, in the hotel parking lot, Peeta shoved his orange duffel into the trunk. He did it somewhat aggressively, which made Katniss frown at him. In the driver’s seat, Delly drummed her fingers against the steering wheel, pretending not to watch them through the rearview mirror. But Katniss had caught her looking already, so the jig was up.

     Peeta slammed the trunk closed, making Katniss jump like seven feet.

     “Hey, hey, come here,” she said, reaching for him. He pivoted towards her and pulled her quickly into his arms. Katniss sighed, feeling his breath against her neck, ruffling her hair slightly. She had only just gotten used to feeling this again—the pleasantness and warmth of his embrace—and now she had to let it go. “I love you.”

     “I love you, too,” Peeta said, burying his face into her hair.

     At least this time, they would keep in contact. Over email, Facebook, Skype. At least this time they were parting with “I love you” instead of Peeta running off because he couldn’t say goodbye.

     “I don’t want to say goodbye,” he said, as if on cue. He pulled back to look her in the eye, guiding a wayward strand of hair back into her hat. “But I will. However, this time, I can promise to see you again.”

     “Prom?” she asked, hopefully. Peeta laughed, even though there was pain in his eyes.

     “Of course. Be there or be square, Everdeen.”

     He kissed her then, hard and on the mouth, even though there were people watching. A family in one corner of the lot, a woman on her own in another, and Delly through the mirror.

     The Circus left Maryland tomorrow, but Katniss wanted to leave with Peeta today.

 ****

Even though they talked every day, Peeta didn’t tell her anything about his lessons.

     If she asked why he looked tired, he just said he had been working hard in school, though honestly this year was the least stressful of all. If she asked about his aching arms, he said it was from holding up a paintbrush, which he actually hadn’t done in a while. He didn’t tell her he’d been dancing around a mirrored studio in the next town over, for an hour and a half without a break. He didn’t tell her that he was one of only two archery students at the same community center that Walden taught woodworking classes in.

      She was Skyping from her bed that Saturday morning in March when she asked for the first time what he was doing for college in the fall. It was weird that they’d never talked about it before, partially because he was worried that the whole college thing was a sore enough subject now that Gale was going away. But he was still taken off guard when she asked.

     “There’s an artsy school outside New York City that wants me,” he said, and that was true. He was actually going to go there if the Circus thing fell through. If his plans did work out, though, he would take some of their online classes anyway.

     “Cool,” she replied. “Have you painted anything new?”

     “What?” he asked. “No. I’m um, working on something big.”

     “Can I see it?”

     “No.”

     No, because there was no big painting project. There was a small canvas with some butterflies on it that he’d painted weeks ago, but that was it. He had some doodles and sketches that were more recent, in fact, that’s what he was doing now—sketching out the curve of her smile on the back of his psychology worksheet.

     He held it up to show her. “I’ve got this?”

     “Is that supposed to be me? Wow, it’s beautiful.”

     “It’s just your mouth,” he said. “And I drew your teeth wrong. I’m not saying that your smile isn’t beautiful, obviously it is, otherwise I wouldn’t be drawing it but…um…” She started laughing as he ran his mouth, babbling about how it would be nicer if it was her whole face, or her whole body, which made his face heat up because of the three week life-drawing class he’d taken in February. All the bodies he’d drawn then had been nude models, and now he was thinking about drawing Katniss that way. He thought about the colors he would have to use for her skin tone, her lips, the silver of her eyes. “Uhm.”

     “Why are you blushing?”

     “Because I’m not thinking about the same things that I’m talking about.”

     She smiled. “Oh, I think I know what you mean. And I miss that too.”

     “Yeah,” he said, reaching out and brushing his thumb over the screen, right where her face was. She laughed and looked down at her keyboard, bashful in a way that would’ve seemed uncharacteristic if you didn’t know her like Peeta did. He knew her as well as you would expect him to and then some, because they’d spent days doing nothing but learning each other, mapping themselves out for the other to see. He knew about every one of her birthmarks, and she had traced the lines of his scars. They knew each other’s stories—how their parents met, their favorite memories, how they had been hurt.

     Peeta knew she only liked cinnamon toothpaste, which he liked too, but Prim hated so she had a separate tube of spearmint. Peeta knew that Katniss sung Taylor Swift songs in the shower and denied it later, and he knew that when she dreamt about dancing, her feet moved under the covers.

     “You’re not blushing anymore,” she pointed out. “I guess you stopped thinking about sex.”

     “I guess I did. I guess I started thinking about something better…” Peeta said, moving his hand away from the screen and leaning back to just look at her. He was so happy to see her, but at the same time so sad that she wasn’t there in person, that he couldn’t reach out and kiss her, not even on the cheek. He wanted to sleep, he was so exhausted, but he wanted to sleep with her beside him. She looked questioning, like she was going to ask what he meant, so he explained before she could get the words out. “I’m thinking about how much I love you.” 

     Katniss laughed. “Of course you are. I love you too,” she said. “And I miss you so very much.”

     “Same,” he said. “I can’t wait to see you in May. You said you could make it, right?”

     “Absolutely. We have a show in Richmond and everything—I’ll be able to drive over and stay the night, and it’ll be perfect. I promise it will be perfect. Now,” she said, “you look much too exhausted to continue this conversation. Hang up and go to bed.”

     “Why?”

     “I just told you why, you adorable dork,” said Katniss, and then she ended the call. He did go right to bed after that, not only because she’d told him too, but because his body had been demanding it since he’d gotten home.

     He dreamt about dancing, and he wondered if his feet moved under the covers too.

 ****

She knocked on the door and stepped back, waiting, listening for the tumbling locks that told her she was going to be let in. Her dress bag was draped over one arm, and she was lugging a suitcase full of her shit in the other. She was in sweats and Peeta’s baggy shirt, but her hair was expertly curled and makeup done by professionals, and looking in the mirror before leaving Richmond made her laugh.

     Delly opened the door and grinned. “You found it!”

     “It’s not that far from Peeta’s,” said Katniss, smiling back. Delly leaned over and took her dress from her, her eyes questioning as she fingered the bag. “No, no looking until I put it on.”

     “Oh, yeah, okay,” she agreed, and then ran off into the house. “Bonnie! Sarah Anne! We finally have everyone here!!”

     Katniss trailed behind her. The house was ranch-style, with French doors that led into the living room, where a couple of girls were sitting on the couch. There was a fireplace on one end of the room, with photos of a younger Delly on the mantel, poised beside pictures of her mom. There was one that was particularly touching—the mother in a hospital bed, pale and without hair, but still grinning hugely as she clutched a little blond girl in her arms.

     Delly caught her looking and said, “I don’t mind talking about it, if you want to ask questions. That one was the last picture before she died.”

     “What kind of cancer was it?”

     “Leukemia. She’d had it when she was younger too,” Delly shrugged. “It came back a few years after I was born. But anyway,” she brushed off the sadness and draped Katniss’s dress over the armchair. Then she turned to the other girls. “The hot one is Bonnie, my girlfriend, and the other one is Cap’s date.”

     One of the girls had mouse-brown hair cut into a bob of sorts, with butterfly clips, and the other one had shoulder-length dark hair streaked with pink. She had a strawberry birthmark over her eye and warm chocolate eyes, and everything about her was welcoming, from her smile to the pink and peach gradient of her prom dress.

     The butterfly girl sighed. “My name is Sarah Anne.”

     “Yes, but that was implied,” countered Delly. Katniss sensed that the two didn’t really get along, even though Sarah Anne appeared to be friends with Bonnie. “She heard me shouting your name before, didn’t you, Kat?”

     “Yeah. Um, hi,” she said, awkwardly waving at both of them. Bonnie got up and hugged her, even though they’d never met before, and then explained that it was because she’d made Peeta so happy over the last year or so. She’d helped him in ways she didn’t even know, apparently.

     But Katniss did know. He’d told her.

     The four girls finished getting ready together, and they all talked about how excited they were. Delly was proud to have a pretty girl on her arm, and she didn’t mind boasting, which made Bonnie blush a lot. Katniss had conversations about hers and Peeta’s love story, and how they made it work with the distance, and everyone but Delly was enamored by it. Delly had lived through it, and knowingly smiled instead.

     When she went into the bathroom to put on her dress, Katniss left the girls waiting. She locked the door and wiggled into the thing, which Cinna had made to be like her performance dress in one way: the independence factor. She didn’t need help at all.

      It wasn’t like her other dress in any other way, though. It hung loosely instead of hugging her frame, and was a shimmery purple color with silver accents instead of vibrant red. It didn’t have any special devices embedded in it, though it was perfect for twirling. She smiled as she remembered how delighted Cinna had been when she’d asked him to make it, her only guidelines being to make sure it didn’t look anything like her Mockingjay dress. She was satisfied.

     When she went back out into the living room, Katniss overheard Delly talking. She was making an attempt to be quiet, but failing, because Delly was not a quiet person.

     “I think he just wants it to be a surprise, babe,” she was saying to Bonnie. “And telling her about that would ruin it.”

       _Telling who about what?_

     Sarah Anne had some input, apparently: “It’s romantic, you know. How he’s doing that for her.”

      “That’s Peeta for you,” said Bonnie softly. “But he’s not just doing it for her. It’s for him, too.”

     Katniss emerged then, but she didn’t let on that she’d heard pretty much the whole thing. Enough that she was confused—it didn’t seem to be a bad thing, since Sarah Anne had thought it romantic, so she tried not to worry. But curiosity rooted itself deep inside her nonetheless. What was Peeta hiding, and why hadn’t she figured it out sooner? Had this been a secret for a long time, or was it new?

     When the doorbell rang twenty minutes later, Katniss almost answered the door herself. She almost asked him right away: “What’s this surprise I caught Delly talking about?” just to satisfy the clawing need to know.

     But she didn’t. She just waited, watching as he walked through the door, sitting calmly between the other girls. For about two seconds—and then she got up, stumbled over, and threw her arms around his neck.

     They barely parted as Delly’s dad appeared with a camera, taking a bunch of different shots in the entryway. And then switching to taking them in front of the fireplace. And then outside. Delly finally had to chide him for keeping them and they all piled into the Mellark minivan, with Cap and Sarah Anne in the front, Peeta and Katniss in the middle, and Bonnie and Delly in the very back.

     At the prom, there were more pictures, some much needed refreshments, and a lot of loud music.

     “Is this what all dances are like?” she half shouted to Peeta, who was clinging to her hand. Sweat accumulated between their palms, but neither was going to let go. He shrugged.

     “Kinda.”

     It wasn’t what she’d expected, but that didn’t make it any less great. There was a slow song playing soon enough, and she was dragging him out onto the dance floor on the promise that she would dance to any other song he wanted. A couple of people glanced their way, and Katniss heard them talking about “Cap’s brother” and how he “wasn’t lying about his hot girlfriend”.

     Katniss grinned. She wrapped her arms around him, dancing the whole song through and kissing him at the end. And then she kept dancing with him until the next slow dance. And the next. They barely took breaks, because even if they looked silly, spending their time like this was better than just sitting there.

     “What time is it?” she asked at some point, shouting again, and he just shrugged again.

     “Don’t know. But what does it matter?” Peeta laughed, spinning her around with one hand and pulling her close. “What does it matter what time it is? I’m content with pretending we have all the time in the world.”

      _How sweet_ , she thought. But of course, the whole “don’t tell Katniss” thing was nagging at her. She latched onto his hand, pulling him towards the edge of the dance floor, and he willingly went along. Still grinning hugely, looking goofy and adorable and just like the Peeta she’d fallen in love with practically a year ago now.

      She pulled him all the way to the gym door and outside into the deserted hallway.

     “What?” he asked, breathlessly, but not as breathless as she would’ve expected. She had known that Peeta wasn’t necessarily “in shape” but it had never mattered. She loved him regardless of his athleticism, or rather, lack thereof, and she was sick of people being so obsessed with abs, when really they just reminded her of the air-sacs that sometimes came in packages instead of bubble wrap. She watched as his brow furrowed. “Is something wrong?”

     “What wasn’t Delly supposed to tell me?”

     Peeta’s smile faltered. He turned and looked down the hall, muttering to himself incomprehensibly. He shook his head, turned back, and said, “Delly cannot keep her mouth shut about anything, can she?”

     “She didn’t tell me. She was just telling Bonnie not to, and I overheard,” Katniss explained. She crossed her arms over her chest. “So?”

     “Look,” he said, raking his hand through his sweat-dampened hair. It was short again. He’d cut it since she’d last seen him over Skype. “It was supposed to be a surprise. I was going to tell you tonight, you know, _later_.”

     Later, in the hotel room. Katniss had thought there would be a lot of secrecy about it, but Peeta’s dad had apparently just booked him the room without asking questions, though he’d apparently handed him a box of condoms on his way out the door.

     “So you can’t tell me now? When everyone else already knows?” she only slightly raised her voice, but Peeta recoiled like she was yelling at him. Shit. She knew it wasn’t bad, and it was supposedly romantic, but she was treating him like he’d done something wrong.

     “I…um…I…Katniss, I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I should’ve told you when I…I should’ve…” He rubbed his face with his hands and wiped sweat onto the sleeves of his rented prom tux. “God, I’ve been lying to you, I’m sorry.”

     “What?”

     “School hasn’t been wearing me down. I’m not tired because of painting or classwork,” he said, but the words were directed at his shoes. His posture and demeanor had changed so quickly, and he seemed so much smaller. Did he feel that guilty? “I lied.”

     “Then what…”

      He looked up, his cheeks reddened, his eyes glossy. The last thing she’d meant to do was to make him look like this, like he was going to cry. Sometimes, because Peeta was so steadfast and surefooted with her, she forgot that he could also be fragile. She reached for him, pulling him into her arms and letting him bury his face in the crook of her neck, holding her so close that there was hardly room for air between them.

     “I love you so, so much,” he said, his voice muffled in her shoulder. “I wanted to surprise you.”

     “I know,” she said, stroking his hair.

     “I’ve been taking classes. Dance classes,” he said finally, stepping back. “And archery. That’s why I’ve been tired. That’s why I’ve lost a little weight.”

     “But _why_?”

     Peeta kissed her then, taking her face between his hands and kissing her like he was trying to convey everything, answer everything, though really it just made her stomach flip like kissing him always did.

     “That’s why,” he said, pulling back, smiling through tears. But they were happy tears. He was glowing with happiness. “So I can do that every day. So I can see you every day, and so we don’t have to be apart anymore because it doesn’t matter what I have to give up so long as I can have you.”

    ****

He auditioned the next day in Richmond. He’d already set it up with Mr. Abernathy, who had gratefully kept it a secret from Katniss, though he’d told Gale at once.

     The Circus was set up in a park, and it was incredibly nice outside as Peeta walked towards the tent. He had intended to come with Katniss on his arm, but she’d left the hotel early to help Prim with something important. “It’s a girl thing,” she’d answered vaguely when he asked, but he had an idea. He wasn’t oblivious, after all, and Prim was at that age.

     “I’ll be in your audition,” she’d promised, leaning over the bed to kiss him goodbye. He could still feel her fingers in his hair, and could still hear her laugh when she had to kick aside his pants to get to the door.

     He pushed aside the striped entrance flaps and strode down the shadowy corridor between the bleachers. This was it. This was the test that determined whether or not he could fulfill this particular dream—it wasn’t a new dream, or an old dream, but a mixture of both. And it was right in his grasp.

     “There he is,” boomed Gale as Peeta stepped out under the lights of the arena. It was all so familiar and nostalgic, reminding him of the summer that had changed everything. “You were almost late.”

     Katniss, who was sitting between him and Abernathy, thumped Gale on the arm. “Shut up. Hey hotstuff,” she called to Peeta, and he grinned at her.

     “Sweetheart,” Haymitch said to her. “Keep it in your pants.”

     This made her laugh and elbow him in the side. They were family, all right. If he was lucky—no, if he was good enough—he could become a part of it.

     There were targets around the arena, and Katniss had on a red cocktail dress that looked a lot like the one she wore for performing. He looked at her legs, crossed in front of her in a ladylike way as she lounged between Gale and Haymitch. She’d mentioned the practice dress before, but he’d thought it was just less elegant, not shorter.

     “You too, blondie,” called Haymitch. “Keep this professional at least until it’s over, you damned teenaged horndogs.”

     If Peeta hadn’t met the guy before, he would’ve been confused and intimidated by his frank commentary. But now he almost found it welcoming—like something a weird old uncle would say.

     “Yeah, sorry, traffic,” he said. He was glad that Panem City was only a half-hour away.

     “Yeah, yeah,” said Haymitch. “Let’s get this show on the road already. I’m hungry for some lunch.”

   ****

Gale and Katniss walked him through the act, though he already knew most of it. He shot arrows and danced with the girl of his dreams and even though he was sure his performance could be better, it seemed like it was enough. Enough to prove to all of them that he had what it took to replace Gale.

     He could only hope that Haymitch agreed.

 ****

He got the call a few weeks later, after the other auditions.

     His heart sunk when Haymitch started talking about how good someone else was, and how he hadn’t told Katniss the verdict yet, even though she was asking for it every other hour. 

     Cap was sitting across from him at the kitchen table, and the sounds he was making as he ate his ridiculously large apple were deafening, as was the pounding of Peeta’s heart in his ears. Everything depended on this answer. Sure, he had a backup plan, but he wanted this more.

     It wasn’t just for her. He had _always_ wanted this.

     “Anyway, boy, after some deliberation…” said Abernathy with a sigh. “I’ve decided that you could use a lot more training.”

      What? No, no, he wasn’t finished. There was still a chance.

     “I know that you have a lot invested in this, Mellark,” he continued. Cap was chewing, and Peeta was hanging on Haymitch Abernathy’s every word. Hoping and praying and crossing his fingers that it could still be him.

     “You weren’t the best, I’m sorry,” he said. “But you wanted it the most. And I had to account for that. The Circus is a family, and you have to really want it to be part of it.”

     “And?” Peeta prompted.

      “Welcome to the family.”


	17. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

 

Katniss had always seemed happiest when she was on fire. She had a grin on her face, a reckless abandon with which she danced, and everything within her seemed to glow as brightly as the flames did around her. He remembered thinking that he wanted to freeze that moment and live in it forever. Forever to gaze upon her, the girl he’d loved before he even understood it, the girl who looked more beautiful in robes of flames than anyone ever could.

     He knew it now, how the flames could make you feel alive. The first few times he wore the costume and danced enough to trigger the fire, even knowing it was artificial didn’t ease his nerves. There was still heat licking at his face and wavering flames, and something in him still panicked like he was about to burn to death.

     But then Katniss was there, her hand in his, and they danced. They danced, and it was better.

     Eventually, he found the same thrills in it that she did. It linked them, somehow, like the events of the summer they’d fallen in love had, and like the intimacy of that last night before she’d gone. At one point, Peeta had been concerned that seeing each other every day, practically living together, would cause what they felt to fizzle out. Instead, it became stronger than ever.

     The act was stronger than ever too. As Peeta was training, the Circus was undergoing other changes too: they hired a new acrobat to replace Rue, who was switching completely over to the horse show, and a fellow who could juggle flaming and sharp things better than Johanna could. The costumes all went through alterations and the effects work became more extravagant. Finnick was working on becoming even more spectacular. However, when the Circus reopened officially, and people flooded through the gates once more, the act that got the most hype was still the same as ever. The Mockingjay had a companion, and before their eyes, the iconic girl on fire fell in love. Critics raved about the passion in the act, clear in every movement, and how it touched the hearts of audiences everywhere.

     This was the point of the show all along, and it was finally done right.

    ****

It was May again, though the air still felt like April along the Virginia coast. The Circus was set up in a local park that was an expanse of green in all directions but the east, where there was a little beach with waves lapping up at the sand.

     The shows for the day were over, with the end of the second having taken place just minutes earlier. Peeta had walked Katniss to her little changing area before leaving the tent, and now he was trekking barefoot across the grass with his shirt rippling around him in the breeze. It was a weird silky fabric, currently the same shade of blue that was in Katniss’s mockingjay dress, though when Cinna reset it, it would be black again. He liked the way it felt, and the way it fit him, but he didn’t like how inadequate it was in protecting him from the chill in the air.

     “Hey, Mags,” he said as he approached her cotton candy stand.  “Finnick.”

     Finnick was perched in the back of the booth, grinning his charming grin, and even in plainclothes he looked like he could win a thousand hearts in a day. But Peeta knew that he only had eyes for one, and would probably end up eloping with her when they performed in Vegas in the fall.

      Peeta got a bag of orange cotton candy and carried it down to the beach, eating little pieces on his way. He sat in the sand and looked out at the water while he waited for her, and while his mind was idle, he thought about how he would mix the colors to get the right shades of the ocean, and how one of them was really similar to what he used in self-portraits for his eyes.

      His sandals hit the sand beside him, landing one on top of the other. Next was his hoodie, which was draped right over them when it landed, and he looked back to see Katniss standing near where the grass met the sand, waving his glasses case, the one thing she was opposed to throwing.

     “You have impeccable aim,” he said to her as she walked over. She kicked off her shoes and settled down on his other side, burying her toes in the sand.

     “Of course I do,” said Katniss. “But lately, not much better than yours.”

     Peeta shrugged. He’d worked hard on those coordination skills, but he wasn’t about to brag about it. Katniss was still undeniably better than him at most things, with art and baking being some of the few exceptions.

      She leaned against him and sighed.

      “Katniss,” he said, without looking at her.

      “Hmm?”

       “I haven’t been completely honest about something.”

      She sat back, squinting at him. “ _What?_ ”  

     “I told you I wasn’t going to do anything for your birthday,” he said, turning to her and smiling. “That wasn’t true.”

     “You got me a present, didn’t you?” she asked, the tension easing out of her shoulders. “You couldn’t stop yourself! Oh my God, you are the most…”

     Peeta laughed. “The most what?”

     “I don’t know! The most insufferably adorably perfect boyfriend on the planet?” Katniss laughed, shaking her head. “I told you I didn’t want you to go to any trouble. It’s just another normal day.”

     “Katniss,” said Peeta. “You and I, we literally _belong to a circus_. There’s no such thing as a normal day.” He still felt a strange sort of rush saying the words, truthfully saying he was part of something so wonderful. Even after almost a year, it was still a sort of magic that was even better than Finn’s. (It was pretty obvious by now that Finn was more than an illusionist, and that he’d somehow harnessed some actual freaky powers.)

     She sighed. “I suppose you have a point. So what did you do?”

     “Not telling.”

     She glared. Peeta shook his head and put on his glasses. He shoved his feet into the sandals that Katniss had thrown at him and shrugged into his jacket, and she just kept glaring.

     He stood up. She reverted to a puppy-dog face. He watched as she positioned her lips in a barely detectable pout, widening her eyes and mustering the saddest look she could. He’d once been a sucker for this particular expression—she used it to get what she wanted, and sometimes, when she was in “trouble”, like when she’d eaten the last cookie or watched Glee without him.  

     “Not telling,” Peeta repeated, shoving assertiveness into his voice. He helped her up and started walking, towards the RV that he officially shared with Finnick, equipped with bunk-beds and a video game collection and was pretty much a bachelor pad, even though he usually slept in Katniss’s bed. She followed closely behind, hanging loosely onto his hand and pretending to be distracted, even though he knew her curiosity was killing her. 

     He got to his mobile home and changed quickly into jeans and a thermal shirt, so he didn’t have to wear his jacket, and hopped back out. Katniss leaned against her own RV, parked right next to his, and pursed her lips sourly. He thought it was hilarious.

 ****

The restaurant was on the other side of town, which meant that the drive there was longer. Katniss kept fishing around for information, like where they were going and who would be there, if she should’ve worn a dress instead of her ripped and faded jeans.

     He told her nothing, and was actually rather proud of himself.

     “Why do people make birthdays so special?” Katniss asked at one point as they waited at an intersection. Peeta thought about it for a moment, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. When the light changed to green, he turned right. They were almost there.

     “I guess to celebrate you. Your life so far. Your future. I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s a thing. And I, for one, like to take advantage of every opportunity to celebrate.”  

     Katniss looked over at him with less annoyance than she had been looking at him since he’d told her there was a birthday surprise waiting someplace. She took his optimistic words and stored them away inside her, he thought, so she could look back on this moment and smile. There will be more of these moments, he thought to himself. What he could say and do to make her smile seemed to be limitless, and he wanted to make sure it stayed that way.

.     “I love you,” she said rather softly, and then tried to keep up her disgruntled look but failed when Peeta grinned at her. He watched her mouth curve into a smile.

      “Of course you do.”  
      Katniss nodded, and they pulled into the restaurant parking lot. It was a one-location type of place, though it was a lot like an Olive Garden. The food was reasonably priced and so was the big party room that Peeta had rented out for the evening. But Katniss didn’t know that, and she made the face she always made before she was asked to try new things—pursed lips, lifted eyebrows, but only for a second, though only a major distraction could keep Peeta from noticing now that he’d discovered it.

     “So just dinner at some restaurant?” she asked. “I could handle that.”

     “Could you?”

     “No, I’ll probably go batshit crazy and throw things at the wait staff,” she joked, her mouth twitching into a smile again. “But only if they don’t bring our appetizers on time.”

      Peeta chuckled and pulled the key from the ignition. He climbed out of the conspicuous Circus van and looked around, glad to see that no one else he’d invited had opted for a vehicle with a flaming pair of mockingjays painted on the side—the design had changed last month, and Peeta wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He wasn’t a mockingjay like she was, but they seemed to pin the title to him anyway.

     Unfortunately, his family van, with the bakery bumper sticker, was parked close to the entrance. They’d have to walk past it, and Katniss would notice.

     Currently, she was getting out of the car and belatedly, Peeta realized that she was saying something. He tuned in midsentence. “—could’ve just gone south down that road from the fairgrounds.” She pointed at the street, and then turned to him. “But instead, I seem to recall a few turns and detours…”

      “I took the scenic route.”

     “Peeta…”

     “Shh,” he shushed her, taking her hand and leading her forward. He pushed a button on the key fob and pointed it over his shoulder at the car, locking all the doors, and hurried her along past the cars that she could recognize if she looked closely enough. She didn’t even look over at Mr. Mellark’s minivan, which made Peeta breathe easier. At least some of the surprise had been preserved.

      The hostess knew when she heard his name to lead them to the party room, and she didn’t even pick up a menu before saying “Right this way,” and heading off into the labyrinth of the restaurant. Katniss glanced at him, but she followed anyway, all the way to the back of the place where there was a pair of closed wooden doors with a sprawling forest landscape carved into the wood. The hostess smiled and left them there, and as soon as she was out of earshot, Katniss turned to him.

     “I hate you,” she said. “A surprise party, really?”

     “Ha, you don’t hate me. You love me too hard to hate me,” he said. “And it’s not really a surprise party if you know about it now, is it? The whole point of a surprise party is that you don’t know until you walk in.”

      Katniss wrinkled her nose and reached for the door, throwing it open to find a room that was bigger than she expected—he could tell by the way her eyes swept along the walls. It was carpeted for the most part, but with a hardwood dance floor in the middle that the tables were clustered around. There weren’t that many people there, and they were all people she knew, milling around and nibbling on appetizers that were set out on a long table along the wall.

     Finnick saw her first. Peeta watched as he stopped twirling Annie and disappeared in a puff of smoke, reappearing next to Katniss to grab her by the shoulders and propel her into the room. “Happy birthday!” he exclaimed, and he let go of her to pat Peeta on the back.

     Of course, Finnick’s stunt caught the attention of the other party guests and they all sprung to greet Katniss.

     “They didn’t leap out and yell surprise.”

     “I told you it wasn’t a surprise party.”

     Prim and Rue hugged her tightly, and so did Annie when she managed to get there, though Johanna just tugged lightly on her braid and said, “Happy birthday, brainless,” before walking away.

     Cap pushed through the Circus performers and crewmembers to actually pick Katniss up and spin her around—something Peeta could actually do now, which was impressive. Walden’s lanky figure appeared soon after, and he took her into his bony embrace right after the middle brother set her down. And then Mr. Mellark was there, wrapping both Katniss and Peeta in the biggest bear hug of them all.

      “HEY, WHAT ABOUT ME!?” demanded a voice from behind him, and then his arm was pulled away to reveal Delly. Once Peeta’s father had pulled back, she threw her arms around both of them like he had. “Happy birthday, Katniss,” she said, kissing her cheek, and then kissing Peeta’s. She stood back, gave him a once-over, and grinned. “Somebody’s bulked up a bit.”

     He felt the heat rise to his cheeks and shrugged. It was nothing, really.

     “I know. It’s pretty hot,” Katniss put in, which made his cheeks even hotter.

      The party then commenced, or rather, reconvened. People began to dance and eat and do as they’d been doing before they’d arrived. Katniss turned on him as soon as the collective attention was not solely on them. He cringed before she even opened her mouth, because he knew he was about to be scolded.

      “Thank you, Peeta,” she said quietly, which surprised him. “I love you.”

     She took him out onto the dance floor, where he got to show off the dance moves he’d learned in his lessons but hadn’t gotten to utilize in the last year while performing. However, none of it was to the best of his ability, because he was rusty and his attention was divided—he watched the door, because there was someone not here who was supposed to be.

      Mrs. Everdeen arrived halfway through a song, and he recognized her instantly. She was a less vibrant version of the woman in the bakery when he was eight, with gray streaking her hair and heavy eyes, but she smiled when they made eye-contact across the party room. Katniss noticed and looked over her shoulder, spotting her mother and squeezing his arm.

      “Why….?”

     She didn’t finish her question, she just launched towards the door and gave the woman a hug, which was more than Peeta had expected. Katniss always seemed chilly when she talked to or about her mom, but now she was warm and happy to see her. They murmured things to each other and smiled a lot, and it filled Peeta with happiness. He knew that Katniss resented her mother’s absence more often than not, but it seemed like she appreciated her presence even more.

      An hour later, they were all sitting around the tables watching Katniss proudly don a birthday tiara. Peeta sat with her, handing her presents and telling her who to thank for each one. The door at the end of the room creaked open, and now that there wasn’t music to drown it out, they noticed how loud the hinges were.

      Peeta almost didn’t recognize the guy who stood there. He had glasses like Peeta’s, but they were black, and he wore a beanie over his chin-length dark hair. He had a goatee, a green shirt with the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle printed on the front, and ripped and faded jeans—Peeta felt bad that it was the distinctive rip from knee to mid-calf on the left leg that identified the guy instead of, well, his face.  

      “Gale!” Katniss shrieked, putting the boots she’d been wanting aside before getting up and running to greet him. There was so much hugging today—he swore he’d never seen her give so many hugs in one day before. “God, I’ve missed you.”

     “We talk all the time, Catnip,” said Gale.

      “Well, yeah, but never face-to-face! Look at you!” she pulled back, looking him over. “College has changed you!”

      “I’ve been wearing these jeans since I was like, fifteen.”

      “That’s not what I meant, _Mr. Goatee_.”

      Gale unconsciously reached up to stroke his goatee, which made pretty much everyone laugh, even those who didn’t really know him.

     He joined the audience to watch Katniss conquer gift after gift, but only after adding a small package to the pile. He sat with one arm around Prim, leaning back in his chair as he looked on. Later, he and Katniss sat together and talked over cake. Peeta hadn’t been talking to him as much as she had, and it was nice to catch up—several others listened in, including Haymitch, who later muttered something to Gale about calling once in a while so he wouldn’t have to worry that he was dead or comatose.

     The Circus was like a family, especially in that you could never really leave it. Even the new performers had heard about Gale and had to change the way they’d been picturing him—instead of a slob with mean archery skills and a lacking sense of humor, he was this eco-friendly hipster guy that perhaps he was always destined to become. He seemed really happy.

     As the party ended and the sun crept down towards the horizon, Gale helped Peeta load everything Katniss had gotten into the car—it was a lot of small things and a few big things, but the decorations and food also had to be loaded up too.

      After putting a couple of the gift bags in the trunk, he asked something that Peeta wasn’t sure how to respond to.

     “Are you going to marry her?”

      “What?” Peeta sputtered. Gale laughed.

     “Not now,” he said. “I just mean, are you going to marry her _eventually_?” When Peeta looked at him, the look he gave must’ve spoke volumes. _Of course_ , he was saying with his eyes, and Gale grinned brightly. “Never mind. I don’t know why I even had to ask.”

     Peeta nodded.

      “Katniss Everdeen is not the kind of girl to simply date for a while, or even for always. Katniss Everdeen is the kind of girl you marry as soon as you can before someone better catches her attention,” he said. “In the next few years, definitely, I’ll ask.”

      Gale looked like he wanted to say something, judging by the smirk on his face, but instead he just headed back into the restaurant to get the last of the stuff.  

 ****

That night, they were curled together and about to fall asleep when she said it.

      “You know, my left ring finger is feeling a little bare.”

      “What do you want me to do about it?” he asked, nuzzling her neck. She turned her head, smiling at him. Gale had been hinting at something all along, and Peeta had just been too dense to realize. Now, it was hitting him squarely in the face. He thought about how women in movies bought bridal magazines to hint at this sort of thing, but Katniss wasn’t one for subtlety.

      “Marry me, of course.”

      “When?”

      “Next year in June. Probably the twelfth. Save the date,” she said, and then yawned. As she turned back around and closed her eyes, she added, “And don’t worry about a ring. I’ve already picked one out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now how's that for an ending? 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading, and all of the comments and kudos.


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